# articles

title: Atheism’s Empty Soul
topic: Other Worldviews
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 12/03/2020
source: https://www.str.org/w/atheism-s-empty-soul
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Atheists don’t have a livable worldview. I don’t say that to gloat. Several atheists who have been candid with me have told me life is ultimately empty and devoid of meaning. That doesn’t mean they can’t feel happy, follow a set of morals, or believe their life is significant in some way. But their denial of God has serious repercussions.</p>

<p>If you don’t believe in a cosmic Creator, you tend to deny the existence of anything supernatural. There are no angels, demons, or souls. This worldview, called naturalism, posits that the natural world described by physics and chemistry is all that exists.</p>

<p>A belief in naturalism is neither a neutral nor an insignificant commitment. Perhaps the most egregious consequence of naturalism is nihilism (from the Latin word <em>nihil</em>, which means “nothing”). Worldview expert James Sire <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Universe-Next-Door-Worldview-Catalog/dp/0830849386/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?dchild=1&amp;keywords=james+sire&amp;qid=1606749695&amp;sr=8-1-spons&amp;psc=1&amp;spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEzSDNFMVpQQkw2RE8mZW5jcnlwdGVkSWQ9QTAzOTIwNzY1UERaMlQ3TEI4Mk8mZW5jcnlwdGVkQWRJZD1BMDEzMzUyODNOVTU3N0pYQjk1MlImd2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGYmYWN0aW9uPWNsaWNrUmVkaXJlY3QmZG9Ob3RMb2dDbGljaz10cnVl">defines</a> nihilism as</p>

<blockquote>
<p>a denial of the possibility of knowledge, a denial that anything is valuable…. [It] is the negation of everything—knowledge, ethics, beauty, reality. In nihilism no statement has validity; nothing has meaning. Everything is gratuitous, de trop—that is, just there.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Nihilism is a depressing state, but it flows logically from naturalism for three reasons.</p>

<p><strong>First, naturalism leads to nihilism because humans don’t have free will.</strong> The atheist’s worldview denies the existence of spiritual or non-physical entities. If only physical things exist in the universe, then everything is subject to a cause and effect system that operates according to the laws of physics and chemistry.</p>

<p>Since human beings are also merely physical machines, they are subject to the same forces of cause and effect. It’s impossible to make a decision that is unencumbered by the laws of physics and chemistry on our brain. We do what we are determined to do. We are cogs in a cosmic machine. French philosopher Pierre Jean Georges Cabanis <a href="http://www.greatthoughtstreasury.com/author/pierre-cabanis-fully-pierre-jean-george-cabanis">bluntly puts it</a>: “The brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile.” We’re just meat machines without the capacity for free will.</p>

<p>Freedom, however, is a key component to a meaningful life. If we can’t act freely, we can’t make our lives what we will. There’s no “I” to decide and determine our own destiny. Our “decisions” are not significant because they are not ours. Rather, our future is determined by blind physical forces. We’re just along for the ride.</p>

<p><strong>Second, naturalism leads to nihilism because knowledge is unattainable.</strong> Knowledge is <em>justified</em> true belief. Suppose you believe the Liberty Bell is three feet tall, and it’s also true that it’s that tall. You hold a true belief. Suppose, though, that you came to believe it’s three feet tall because you rolled a pair of dice and the sum was three. You would not have a <em>justified</em> true belief because a chance dice roll isn’t proper justification. Therefore, though you have a true belief, you would not have knowledge.</p>

<p>The problem for the atheist arises from the fact that their worldview of naturalism views the brain as a wholly material object, subject to the environmental forces of physics and chemistry. Such forces, however, have no interest in producing reliable cognitive faculties. Physical forces on a physical object like the brain won’t necessarily produce a trustworthy system of independent thought, reason, and logical deduction. Since we can’t be confident in our ability to attain justified true beliefs, we can’t have knowledge.</p>

<p>Naturalist J.B.S Haldane <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191826719.001.0001/q-oro-ed4-00005122">concedes</a>, “If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason for supposing that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically.”</p>

<p>Our brains are subject entirely to environmental forces, thereby calling into question whether our cognitive faculties are reliable. Without confidence of justified true beliefs, we’re left with a life devoid of knowledge and bereft of meaning. That’s nihilism.</p>

<p><strong>Third, naturalism leads to nihilism because morality doesn’t exist.</strong> The world, according to naturalism, is just there. Students cheat in school, lions eat zebras, and men rape women. Life just happens. There’s no way the world is supposed to be because there’s no “supposer.” God doesn’t exist as our objective moral standard, so there’s no fixed set of morals that exists outside of ourselves. Each person acts however they like.</p>

<p>Without morality, there’s no possibility to do what is “good” or “noble.” There’s no virtue or vice. You can’t better yourself since there’s no ideal to pursue. Life is a trek with no moral compass and no destination.</p>

<p>But it’s worse. Despite the absence of morality, there’s no shortage of guilt. People have an intuitive sense that they do wrong. But in a world without God, there’s no forgiveness. We’re left in a state of guilt without any hope of redemption. That’s ethical nihilism.</p>

<p>The atheist’s worldview of naturalism leads to a world devoid of free will, knowledge, and morality. It leads to nihilism. The Christian worldview, by contrast, can justify free will, explain knowledge, and define right and wrong. More importantly, it provides a solution to our moral crimes and frees us from our guilt. Christianity makes the best sense of reality.</p>
</div>

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title: Have You Seen Faithfulness in 2020?
topic: Announcements
author: Greg Koukl
date: 12/02/2020
source: https://www.str.org/w/have-you-seen-faithfulness-in-2020-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>You and I will both rejoice when 2020 finally comes to a close. It’s been a crazy, unpredictable, and challenging year. <strong>But there’s another word that comes to mind to describe this year: <em>Faithfulness</em>.&nbsp;</strong></p>

<p>With the help of devoted friends like you, STR has been faithfully&nbsp;standing firm in our commitment to equip you and a growing army of Christian ambassadors&nbsp;with knowledge, wisdom, and character.</p>

<p>There’s a reason for the faithful stability we’ve seen at STR in the midst of this cultural storm. <strong>The reason is this: <em>We are bolted to reality</em>.</strong> As Christians, we know the truth. You and I understand both God’s reliable Word and the crafty lies of our culture.</p>

<p>So when the COVID chaos hit, we pivoted, immediately, in one direction: the digital world. <strong>With your prayers and faithful financial support, we…</strong></p>

<ul>
	<li>Launched a <strong>brand-new website</strong>—completely reorganized for ease of use</li>
	<li>Introduced the <strong>wildly popular “Red Pen Logic” videos hosted by Tim Barnett</strong> on YouTube</li>
	<li>Continued to pass the baton to the most important generation—the <em>next</em> one—with <strong>two Reality&nbsp;Student Apologetics Conferences</strong> in Seattle and Minneapolis</li>
	<li><strong>Pivoted our speakers almost exclusively to digital appearances</strong>&nbsp;at churches, conferences, and dozens of interviews on radio and online</li>
	<li>Vigorously <strong>expanded our social media presence</strong>—especially with millennials and younger</li>
	<li><strong>Are now ready to kick off STR U</strong>—our new, interactive, online training platform.</li>
</ul>

<p><strong><em>And we couldn’t have done this without you.</em></strong> I can’t thank you enough for the critical role you play in enabling us to stand strong and faithfully provide safe, trustworthy spiritual guidance to so many.</p>

<p>It’s never been so needed—just a quick glance at the culture today confirms it. Which is why we’re so thankful for a group of dedicated partners who have pledged a $225,000 Challenge Gift as a challenge to you and our other friends to give generously to collectively equal or exceed their gift.&nbsp;</p>

<p><a href="https://www.str.org/donate"><strong><em><u>Will you accept the Challenge and send your best gift today?</u></em></strong></a></p>

<p>As a way of saying thank you for your gift of $60 or more, I’ll send you <strong><em>The Story of Reality six-session DVD </em>video study, along <em>with </em></strong><strong><em>a signed copy of the in-depth companion 118-page Story of Reality Study Guide</em></strong>. Or in appreciation for your gift of any amount, I’ll be delighted to send you the companion&nbsp;<em>Study Guide </em>by itself, which is fresh off the press.</p>

<p><em>The Story of Reality</em> study gives you&nbsp;the big picture of Christianity in a way you may never have seen before. There is no better way to get you fully bolted to reality than seeing the big picture of Christianity.</p>

<p><a href="https://www.str.org/donate"><strong><u>Please consider the Challenge and make your gift today.</u></strong></a> Every dollar you give today will move STR that much closer to meeting—and even exceeding—the $225,000 Challenge amount.</p>

<p>Let me hear from you right away with your support. And when I do, I’ll send you the gifts I’ve promised.</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

<p>Standing faithfully with you,</p>

<p>Gregory Koukl</p>
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title: What It Means to Be Thankful
topic: Christian Living
author: Jonathan Noyes
date: 11/24/2020
source: https://www.str.org/w/what-it-means-to-be-thankful
content:
            <div> 
		<p>On November 11, 1620, a group of weary travelers ended their 66-day journey across the stormy Atlantic Ocean and arrived at what we now know as Plymouth, Massachusetts. The voyage was difficult, but the travelers’ trials had only begun. The harsh New England winter eventually claimed 45 of the 102 Mayflower passengers.</p>

<p>In spite of the great loss and continued struggle, one year after their arrival the Pilgrims gave thanks for what God had given them. This was their prayer:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>O Lord our God and heavenly Father, which of Thy unspeakable mercy towards us, hast provided meate and drinke for the nourishment of our weake bodies. Grant us peace to use them reverently, as from Thy hands, with thankful hearts: let Thy blessing rest upon these Thy good creatures, to our comfort and sustentation: and grant we humbly beseech Thee, good Lord, that as we doe hunger and thirst for this food of our bodies, so our soules may earnestly long after the food of eternal life, through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, Amen.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>This prayer is a model for giving thanks. Even though the Pilgrims had lost so much during the first winter and were battered and weary, they understood that everything they had received—every “perfect gift”—had come from the perfect Gift Giver, so they looked to the new harvest and gave thanks. The Pilgrims could have celebrated their own hard work and perseverance, but they didn’t. They celebrated God.</p>

<p>It was the right thing to do. Paul reminds us, “Whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father” (Col. 3:17).</p>

<p>The Pilgrims were thankful for this harvest because they knew it was a gift from God, but it didn’t stop there. They also sought God’s direction and guidance to use these resources for his glory even while plagued with struggles and uncertainty. They prayed, <em>“Grant us peace to use them reverently, as from Thy hands, with thankful hearts.”</em></p>

<p>Again, I’m reminded of Paul’s words:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with little, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. (Phil. 4:11–13)</p>
</blockquote>

<p>We too seek to do God’s will with the gifts he’s given us, regardless of life’s circumstances. When we turn to God <em>with little </em>or<em> with much</em> and focus on using the gifts we have to build his kingdom, we don’t become distracted by despair or doubt. Instead, we become overwhelmed with thanksgiving.</p>

<p>For the Pilgrims, the harvest meant survival. They knew the true story of reality included more than this physical world, though. They kept their focus on the only things that would sustain them regardless of their circumstance—Jesus, his cross, and Heaven beyond it. They pleaded to God for their souls to never grow satisfied with anything but Christ.</p>

<p>These were a people who embodied Paul’s words: “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom. 8:18).</p>

<p>This last year has been hard for Americans. It was a year of COVID-19 lockdowns, masks, a struggling economy, rioting, looting, topped off by a contentious presidential election. It’s been a year in which many might find it hard to be thankful.</p>

<p>However, just as the Pilgrims were able to give thanks in the face of trials, we can be grateful too since we have so much to be thankful for even in these tough times. We remind ourselves that everything we have is a gift <em>from</em> God to be used <em>for</em> God, and that our hope is not found in the things of this world but in Christ alone.</p>
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title: Should We Cancel Thanksgiving This Year?
topic: Christian Living
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 11/25/2020
source: https://www.str.org/w/should-we-cancel-thanksgiving-this-year-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>If there were ever a year to forgo giving thanks, it would be 2020. This year has been—by many standards—awful for large swaths of the population. The COVID-19 outbreaks at the beginning of the year quickly led to a pandemic, prompting lockdowns across the globe. The economy plunged, leading to financial ruin for millions of people. Businesses shuttered and breadwinners lost their jobs. Financial difficulty combined with the psychological effects of social distancing caused depression and suicidal thoughts&nbsp;to skyrocket. It was the start of a miserable year.</p>

<p>But societal strife was just beginning. The problems of the pandemic hadn’t reached fruition when protests over George Floyd’s death sparked riots and looting, plunging the country into a bitter racial divide. Add a contentious presidential election to the mix to make this year one that everyone wants to forget.</p>

<p>This year has been a disaster. What is there to be thankful for?</p>

<p>The Pilgrims didn’t have it much better. It was exactly 400 years ago that they set sail for America in search of a better life, but they began their journey by enduring a 65-day nightmare on the stormy sea. They landed in Plymouth only to face the next ordeal: a brutal New England winter. Of the 102 men, women, and children, half of all the Pilgrims died from exposure, famine, and sickness.</p>

<p>The Pilgrims’ first year in America was a disaster. What was there to be thankful for?</p>

<p>When times are tough, it’s tempting to downplay giving thanks. It seems to us there’s less to be thankful for, after all. But that attitude presumes our gratitude is dependent on how we feel about what we’ve been given. That is neither biblical nor healthy.</p>

<p>Gratitude isn’t an emotion that’s dependent on how much we’re enjoying our immediate circumstances. It’s a virtue we should cultivate based on the truth that “in all things God works for the good of those who love him” (Rom. 8:28). No matter how bad 2020 gets, we should give thanks for at least three reasons.</p>

<p><strong>First, we’re commanded to be thankful. </strong>Whether it’s the Pilgrims in 1620 or we in 2020, we’re to give thanks to God, even if we’re dealing with difficulty. Paul writes, “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thess. 5:18). Despite half of their friends and family perishing in the past year, the Pilgrims knew giving thanks wasn’t optional. They did, however, have a good harvest and were able to give thanks for it, though they knew their earthly fortunes could change yet again.</p>

<p>In addition to being commanded to give thanks, giving God our gratitude is all that we can give him. Our works are nothing more than “filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). John Milton makes this point in his poetic work <a href="https://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/pr/book_3/text.shtml"><em>Paradise Regain’d</em></a>. He writes:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Of whom what could he less expect<br>
Then glory and benediction, that is thanks,<br>
The slightest, easiest, readiest recompence<br>
From them who could return him nothing else.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>We can’t offer God anything that will satisfy him. All we have to offer is our thanks. We can give him that. In fact, we should.</p>

<p><strong>Second, being thankful is for our good.</strong> <em>God</em> doesn’t need our gratitude. <em>We</em> need to cultivate gratitude. David writes, “It is good to give thanks to the Lord” (Psalm 92:1). This is not just because God is good, but also because it is good for us. Being grateful changes our attitude and lifts our spirit. During a year like this, we could use the help.</p>

<p>In his book <em>Happiness Is a Serious Problem</em>, Dennis Prager writes, “There’s a ‘secret to happiness’—and it is gratitude. All happy people are grateful, and ungrateful people cannot be happy…. Become grateful and you will become a much happier person.” I acknowledge there’s a difference between happiness and joy, and that Scripture promises the latter, but I think the point still stands. Develop an attitude of gratefulness, and it will change your outlook towards life, even in the midst of a difficult year.</p>

<p><strong>Third, we have good reason to be thankful.</strong> God is good. He loves us. He cares for us. He created the planets and stars, the oceans and mountains, the plants and the animals. God made them for our enjoyment and provision. Plus, he’s secured a way to pardon us from our moral failures through his son, Jesus. We have much to be thankful for already.</p>

<p>There’s more, though. We can be thankful for the future he guarantees us. The Pilgrims knew that no matter how dire their circumstances might become, what was promised them was a heavenly harvest that no earthly circumstance could steal. For this same reason, the author of Hebrews was grateful and wrote, “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe” (Heb. 12:28). Nothing can jeopardize our heavenly home. Nothing can separate us from God’s secure hands (Rom. 8:38–39).</p>

<p>At Stand to Reason, our desire is to nurture gratitude. No matter how bad our circumstances, we know God is good. He is sovereign, and nothing in 2020 can change that. That’s why we’re not canceling Thanksgiving this year.</p>
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title: Reading the Bible Requires Rules We Already Know
topic: Tactics and Tools
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 12/16/2020
source: https://www.str.org/w/reading-the-bible-requires-rules-we-already-know
content:
            <div> 
		<p>It’s easy to misinterpret the Bible when you don’t follow basic rules of interpretation. Therefore, I’ve offered the approach of <a href="https://youtu.be/ut0jA0OvQ5g" rel="noopener" target="_blank">asking three questions</a> when reading any passage:</p>

<ol>
	<li>What is the author talking about in the surrounding text (context)?</li>
	<li>What is the historical occasion for why the author wrote (history)?</li>
	<li>What literary style is the passage written in (genre)?</li>
</ol>

<p>On occasion, I’m accused of making Bible study more complex than it needs to be. People suggest I’m creating rules to interpret Scripture and, consequently, making the bar higher—not lower—for people to digest God’s word.</p>

<p>I’m sympathetic to that concern. I don’t want believers to think the Bible is a cryptic book that requires specialized skills to decipher. In fact, I think the Bible’s message is straightforward and clear. Anyone can understand it.</p>

<p>Then why do I encourage believers to apply these principles when they read Scripture? Should someone first know those three questions before they read the Bible? Yes and no.</p>

<p>Yes, every believer <em>should</em> apply those questions when reading Scripture. No, I’m not asking people to learn any special skills. That might sound contradictory, but let me explain.</p>

<p>Virtually every person <em>already knows</em> the <a href="/w/you-can-t-obey-god-unless-you-know-what-he-said" rel="noopener" target="_blank">principles of biblical interpretation</a>. They apply those three questions (subconsciously) every day when they read any document or interact with any person. All I’m asking is that they apply the same principles they already know to their Bible reading.</p>

<p><strong>Everyone knows about </strong><a href="/w/coffee-cup-christianity" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><strong>context</strong></a><strong>.</strong> When someone gets a long email from a friend, they never skip the first five paragraphs and then only read the third sentence in the sixth paragraph. Why not? They wouldn’t know what their friend is talking about. Instead, they would begin at the beginning and read all the way through. For some reason, however, the same person will pick up the word of God, skip the first five chapters of the letter to the Galatians, and read only a verse (or two). All I’m suggesting is that people apply what they already practice in everyday life to Bible reading.</p>

<p><strong>Everyone knows about </strong><a href="https://youtu.be/zgrNJZpqHLw" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><strong>history</strong></a>. Fifteen years ago, there were news articles about 54,000 US military troops and military personnel being deployed to Louisiana and Mississippi. Was it a coup? Was it to defend against an invasion? If you performed even a rudimentary internet search or asked anyone who lived in that area at that time, the answer would be obvious. The Marines and National Guard were mobilized in 2005 as an emergency response to hurricane Katrina that caused widespread flooding, fires, and civil unrest. Understanding that history will explain why news sites wrote about the military deployment on US soil.</p>

<p>If it makes sense to understand the history behind a report written during modern times, why would it not make even more sense to investigate why reports were written in the Bible over 2,000 years ago. All I’m suggesting is that people apply what they practice in modern times to texts found in the Scriptures.</p>

<p><strong>Everyone knows about </strong><a href="/w/when-god-doesn-t-promise" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><strong>genre</strong></a><strong>.</strong> If a sports headline reads, “Cowboys Shoot Down Eagles,” everyone knows that men with revolvers didn’t shoot any birds. We all recognize that sports news is written in a particular literary style, where teams are often named after people (e.g. Cowboys, 49ers, etc.) and animals (e.g. eagles, dolphins etc.). No one is confused. For some reason, however, the same people who understand that news headlines are written in different literary styles, ignore the different literary styles of Scripture. They mistakenly read <a href="https://youtu.be/tddt9XBv374" rel="noopener" target="_blank">proverbs and interpret them as promises</a>, for example. The Bible, however, is written in at least eight different literary styles, each of which has its own interpretive principles. All I’m suggesting is that people apply their understanding of modern literary styles to the different literary styles (genres) of the Bible.</p>

<p>We already know the basic principles of biblical interpretation (context, history, and genre). We apply them every day when we read or hear anything. The problem is that we jettison those principles when we open the Scriptures. We know to consider context, but ignore it when reading a Bible verse. We know to investigate the history, but don’t bother when we study a passage. We know different literary styles should be interpreted differently, but tend to ignore the genres in Scripture.</p>

<p>We know better. Let’s apply commonsense interpretive rules <em>we already know</em> to the Bible. Let’s be consistent when reading the most important of all texts: the one that contains the very words of God.</p>
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title: Proverbs Don��t Become Promises Just Because Jesus Says Them
topic: Tactics and Tools
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 12/08/2020
source: https://www.str.org/w/proverbs-don-t-become-promises-just-because-jesus-says-them
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Imagine living in the first century and discovering that Jesus is coming to visit you. The time of his of arrival is at hand, and you hear someone knocking. “Here I am,” you hear Jesus say. “I’m standing at the door. Will you allow me to come in?” You invite him in and begin to chat about the sermon he gave while on a mountain the week before.</p>

<p>Soon, pangs of hunger overtake your attention. You offer to prepare some bread for Jesus, but he declines, citing something about not living by bread alone. Still, you want to eat, so you head to the refrigerator to grab some food. Looking inside, you notice you only have an apple and a Pop-Tart. A dilemma ensues. You really want the Pop-Tart but remember learning in Sunday school that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. Since Jesus is right there and is co-eternal with the Holy Spirit, you definitely don’t want to pollute your temple with junk food…right in front of Jesus! So, you take the apple and then hear Jesus say, “Good choice. After all, an apple a day keeps the doctor away!”</p>

<p>The phrase “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” is a modern proverb. It’s not found in the Bible, but the book of Proverbs is of the same genre and same style of literature. Proverbs, in general, are pithy and memorable sayings that express basic truths of life. Here’s the most important interpretive principle to remember about them: <em>proverbs are not promises</em>. They describe the way life generally goes. As such, they teach <em>probable</em> outcomes, not <em>guaranteed</em> outcomes.</p>

<p>Consider our example. Is it generally true that if you eat a lot of fruits and vegetables, you’ll be a healthy person? Sure. Is it guaranteed that if you eat an apple every day, then you will never need to see a doctor? Obviously not. Does that invalidate the proverb? No, because the proverb is meant not as a promise, but as an expression of the way life generally goes.</p>

<p>Here’s the key question: If Jesus says a proverb, does it become a promise? No. Proverbs still express probable outcomes no matter who says them, even if that person is divine. The same would apply to the book of Proverbs. Though they are God’s words, these proverbs don’t becomes promises simply because their ultimate author is divine.</p>

<p><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=prov+16%3A7&amp;version=NASB1995" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Proverbs 16:7</a>, for example, says, “When a man’s ways are pleasing to the Lord, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.” Were the apostle Paul’s ways pleasing to the Lord? Most people would agree they were. After all, this guy wrote Scripture! Were his enemies at peace with him? No, they beheaded him! Does this mean that God didn’t deliver on his promise? No, because Proverbs 16:7 is <em>not</em> a promise. It’s a proverb.</p>

<p>This simple principle—understanding that a <a href="/w/when-god-doesn-t-promise" rel="noopener" target="_blank">proverb is not a promise</a>—can make a significant difference in <a href="/w/you-can-t-obey-god-unless-you-know-what-he-said" rel="noopener" target="_blank">how we understand what God is saying</a>. If we interpret proverbs as promises, we will become disappointed when we think God is not fulfilling his promises. If we understand proverbs properly, however, we won’t make that mistake.</p>
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title: The Top Ten Posts of 2020
topic: Announcements
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 12/29/2020
source: https://www.str.org/w/the-top-ten-posts-of-2020
content:
            <div> 
		<p>I’m just taking a wild guess here, but you may have been distracted by some of the things that happened this year. Did you miss any of our most-popular posts? Here’s the list so you can catch up!</p>

<ol start="10">
	<li><a href="/w/how-to-prepare-for-the-next-cultural-revolution">How to Prepare for the Next Cultural Revolution</a> – “[W]e need to be ready for the next false philosophy—in a year, in five years, or in a decade—that will spawn the next cultural revolution. I can’t predict what it will be, but I know it will happen. I also know what we can do to be ready, prevent Christian defectors, and answer the challenge when it arrives. Here are two ways to prepare for the next revolution.”</li>
</ol>

<ol start="9">
	<li><a href="/w/did-god-ordain-abortion-as-punishment-for-infidelity-">Did God Ordain Abortion as Punishment for Infidelity?</a> – “Though abortion is inconsistent with the Christian worldview, some people point to a Bible passage they believe ordains abortion. Numbers 5:11–31 cites an unusual test for adultery…. This procedure employs a providential sign from God to indicate infidelity. If the woman is guilty, ‘her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry,’ a curse that some suggest amounts to an ‘intentional miscarriage.’ If so, they claim, this demonstrates that God ordained abortion. There are several reasons, however, why they’re mistaken.”</li>
</ol>

<ol start="8">
	<li><a href="/w/what-are-the-most-powerful-arguments-for-the-existence-of-god-">What Are the Most Powerful Arguments for the Existence of God?</a> – “I have two favorites I think are relatively easy to follow and are really powerful evidences for God.”</li>
</ol>

<ol start="7">
	<li><a href="/w/what-must-ben-shapiro-do-to-be-saved-">What Must Ben Shapiro Do to Be Saved?</a> – “Bishop Barron is wrong. Shapiro <em>cannot</em> be saved by ‘following the commandments of the Law sincerely’…. The answer to Shapiro’s question isn’t hard. In fact, the apostle Paul answers the question <em>‘What must I do to be saved?’ </em>in a single sentence.”</li>
</ol>

<ol start="6">
	<li><a href="/w/coffee-cup-christianity">Coffee Cup Christianity</a> – “We’ve become accustomed to seeing isolated Bible verses and presume we know their meaning. Too often, however, we merely insert our own meaning into a Bible verse, thereby overwriting what God was trying to tell us.”</li>
</ol>

<ol start="5">
	<li><a href="/w/thinking-critically-about-critical-race-theory">Thinking Critically about Critical Race Theory</a> – “Critical Theory divides the world into two groups: the oppressors and the oppressed. Those groups are made up of smaller cultural groups defined by race, sex, sexual preference, gender identity, etc. When this worldview focuses on race, it’s called Critical Race Theory (CRT). CRT divides people into groups by race, the white oppressors and the oppressed non-whites…. There’s a better alternative to CRT—Christianity.”</li>
</ol>

<ol start="4">
	<li><a href="/w/talking-to-jehovah-s-witnesses-start-here">Talking to Jehovah’s Witnesses? Start Here</a> – “Over the last few years, I’ve responded to a number of objections from Jehovah’s Witnesses. Until now, these articles were scattered all over the STR website. I decided it would be helpful to put them all in one place.”</li>
</ol>

<ol start="3">
	<li><a href="/w/seven-apologetics-books-every-teen-should-read">Seven Apologetics Books Every Teen Should Read</a> – “I often get asked about which apologetics books I recommend <em>for students</em>. Here is the list I normally offer. Rather than overwhelm you with options, I’ve selected <em>one</em> book for each of the <em>seven</em> essential topics below.”</li>
</ol>

<ol start="2">
	<li><a href="/w/how-2020-is-taking-a-toll-on-your-soul">How 2020 Is Taking a Toll on Your Soul</a> – “I’m going to tell you something that will explain what you’re likely feeling about this turbulent year. No doubt, you’ve witnessed a series of tragic events unfold before your eyes. You’ve also probably felt an inordinate pressure to say the right thing about each of them. Like you, I’ve been hesitant to comment for fear I’ll be blasted by someone who sees things differently. It’s been frustrating and fatiguing, to say the least, and I believe this short comment by a Texas pastor explains the reason why we feel this way.”</li>
</ol>

<ol>
	<li><a href="/w/the-super-bowl-ad-fox-won-t-show-you">The Super Bowl Ad Fox Won’t Show You</a> – “We’re so used to hearing people argue for ‘choice’ that I suspect many give little thought to the actual choice being made. An organization called Faces of Choice wants to change that by showing us the faces and stories of real abortion survivors who were victims of that word…. The good news is that <em>you</em> can still bring attention to their message by watching and sharing their ad (which doesn’t use the word ‘abortion’) or the more detailed two-minute version of the video posted below. As they say, ‘“Choice” is not merely a word. “Choice” is a person.’”</li>
</ol>
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title: Christmas Reflections from Stand to Reason
topic: Theology
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 12/22/2020
source: https://www.str.org/w/christmas-reflections-from-stand-to-reason
content:
            <div> 
		<p>We’re so grateful for you, our readers. The speakers and I have written short Christmas reflections we’d like to share with you to wish you a merry Christmas. Enjoy!</p>

<p>“The God of all creation humbled himself to become a human being—our Savior, Christ the Lord. Because Jesus was born, he could die, bringing the abundance of life we enjoy through him. May each of you rest in the security of the Babe whose birth we celebrate this day.” —Greg Koukl</p>

<p>“I’m always in awe of the nativity season because it represents a historically unprecedented event. Throughout the ages, there have been many men who sought to be God. But there’s only been one God who sought to be man (Phil. 2:5–8).” —Alan Shlemon</p>

<p>“The birth of Christ is the timeless event that invites us to believe that the cries of a broken world have actually been heard—a Savior was born, the vault of heaven has truly been opened. You’ve heard the famous words, ‘Mild he lays his glory by, born that man no more may die, born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth. Hark! The herald angels sing, “Glory to the newborn King!”’ This Christmas I’ll be singing these words with a better understanding of their true meaning and finding hope in the only True King, believing in Christ the Savior. Will you join me?” —Jon Noyes</p>

<p>“At the end of a challenging year, nothing comforts like the incarnation of Christ. It stands before us as proof of God’s love and desire to help us, for ‘he who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all’ will surely fulfill his plans for us. Because of the incarnation, even in difficult years we can have hope in our pain because we know our present trials are in his loving, sovereign hands and our future with him is secure.” —Amy Hall</p>

<p>“We’ve all heard it: ‘Jesus is the reason for the season.’ But how exactly is Jesus the reason for Christmas? Why did he come? Jesus tells us. He came to give his life as a ransom for sinners. He came to call those sinners to repentance. He came to give eternal life to anyone who would believe in him. This Christmas season, meditate on these precious theological truths. Allow the purpose of his coming to fill your heart with inexpressible and glorious joy. Joy to the world. The Lord is come.” —Tim Barnett</p>
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title: The Hope of the World
topic: Theology
author: Jonathan Noyes
date: 12/24/2020
source: https://www.str.org/w/the-hope-of-the-world
content:
            <div> 
		<p>“It was the good news that gave the world hope.”</p>

<p>If I told you this was the opening line of an article on CNN.com, you’d probably celebrate. Especially this time of year. You’d assume CNN was pointing their readers to the hope found in the message of Christmas. The gospel.</p>

<p>This <em>is</em> the opening line to an article on CNN.com, but the good news has nothing to do with Christmas or the gospel. It’s about a COVID-19 vaccine. This is good news, but is it where the world should place its hope? I’d say no, and here’s why.</p>

<p>COVID-19 is a serious thing. Many people have been affected by the virus, and that shouldn’t be trivialized. But this is all part of living in a broken world. Even before COVID-19, disease and death were a reality for you and me.</p>

<p>Don’t misunderstand me—a vaccine is wonderful news. For many, it means avoiding death. For now. This is why the world shouldn’t place its hope in a vaccine. While it’s good news, it’s temporary. While it will help people in the immediate future avoid dying of the COVID-19 virus, it doesn’t help people avoid the consequences of a more serious virus. Sin. Sin affects all of us. Paul says that “death spread to all men, because all sinned.”</p>

<p>C.S. Lewis made this point when writing about the reality of living in the era of nuclear weapons:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The world needs good news, but it’s not found in news of a vaccine. It’s much simpler than that. It’s found in the Christmas message. The birth of Christ is the timeless event that invites us to believe that the cries of a broken world have actually been heard—a Savior was born, the vault of heaven has truly been opened.</p>

<p>You’ve heard the famous words, “Mild He lays His glory by, born that man no more may die, born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth. Hark! The herald angels sing, ‘Glory to the newborn King!’” This Christmas I’ll be singing these words with a better understanding of their true meaning, and I’ll be finding hope in the only True King, Christ the Savior.</p>
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title: Iron Curtain Diary
topic: Other Worldviews
author: Greg Koukl
date: 01/01/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/iron-curtain-diary
content:
            <div> 
		<p>I want to tell you a story. It is a glimpse into a totalitarian world. It is also part of my own story, a sliver of my life as a young Christian traveling in foreign countries, visiting believers living under brutal, authoritarian rule.</p>

<p>I share my story with you because of an insight often quoted but frequently ignored: Ideas have consequences.</p>

<p>What follows is a record of the consequences Christians encountered because of an idea nearly half a century ago in a far-off place. They are also consequences we are encountering now in our own country and in our own communities.</p>

<p>In the summer of 1976, just after my 26th birthday, when I was not quite three years old in Christ, I journeyed to Europe with three others—Lance, fresh out of seminary, and Jeff and Donna, a young married couple contemplating long-term missions work on the Continent.</p>

<p>Our goal: make contact with Christians in the Soviet bloc countries of Hungry, Romania, the Ukraine, and Poland who were suffering persecution behind what was then called the Iron Curtain. Bible smuggling was not our project, but we did pack Russian Scriptures in with our belongings.</p>

<p>We’d purchased a small station wagon<a href="#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title="">[1]</a> in Switzerland, bought sleeping bags and camping gear so we could sleep on the cheap, then entered “the East” south of Vienna, meeting contacts in Hungary and Romania without detection by the state. Veterans of such trips told us the Soviet Union would be different, though. They were right.</p>

<h2>Leushen, Moldova, USSR—Friday, July 23</h2>

<p>Leaving the Romanian checkpoint behind us, we traversed east, crossing an arching causeway over the Prut River and “no man’s land”—a barbed wire barricade stretching for miles with machine gun towers watching the frontier—to the Soviet side two kilometers away.</p>

<p>Once in the USSR, the Soviet guards glanced at our passports, fumbled superficially through our belongings, checked quickly under our car from a pit made for that purpose, then directed us inside for paperwork and customs declarations. Things were going smoothly, and I expected we’d be out shortly.</p>

<p>When I asked if I could change money before we left, the customs officer said there would be time “after operations.” I soon found out what he meant.</p>

<p>Three men sat at a long table next to the building. One mentioned something about literature and told us to empty the entire contents of our car onto the table. A quick chill went up my spine. <em>They’re looking for Bibles</em>, I thought. I silently prayed, <em>Not my will, but Thine be done</em>. Whatever happened next was in God’s hands.</p>

<p>We dumped most of our luggage, still wet and soggy from the prior night’s rain, onto the table and allowed the guards to go through the rest of the car as they pleased. When one of them discovered a Bible, he held it up triumphantly as if to say, “Aha! I knew it.”</p>

<p>The team then went into overdrive checking everywhere for Christian contraband. They took the seats out, the battery out, and also the back panels on the inside of the car. They looked down the window slots with flashlights, removed the spare tire, and positioned our car over the pit two more times. They went through all our clothing down to every sock and handkerchief four full times. They unrolled our wet tents and our sleeping bags, checked the linings of our suitcases, and asked us repeatedly about secret compartments in the car. They body-searched us thoroughly, even making Jeff undress.</p>

<p>When they’d made a total shambles of our stuff, they told us to put it all back and come into the station.</p>

<p>Once inside, the questions began. Where did we get the Bibles? Why were we bringing them across the border? Who were they for? Did we know such a trafficking was illegal? It went on for hours.</p>

<p>When Jeff explained that the Scriptures were for believers in the Soviet Union, for different churches and their pastors, they asked for the names of the Christians. Jeff told them we planned to look up churches in the phone directory and locate Christians that way.</p>

<p>“But we don’t have churches listed in our phone directory,” the young translator said.</p>

<p>Well, we didn’t know that. We pointed out that in the United States, where there was freedom of religion, all churches were listed in the phone directory. Wasn’t there freedom of religion in the Soviet Union?</p>

<p>“Yes, of course we have freedom of religion,” she said, “but we have separation of church and state.”</p>

<p>That was to be her blanket justification for virtually every intrusion we experienced that afternoon. We never understood exactly how that applied to us since our conduct wasn’t interfering with their “separation.” Lance’s definition was probably the most accurate. “They’re trying to separate the church right out of the state,” he quipped quietly.</p>

<p>“It is forbidden to bring Bibles and other religious material into the Soviet Union,” she continued. “In the schools we teach the children from when they are young that there is no God. Only old people believe in him. Our people are taught Marxist Leninism, that man will solve his own problems and build a wonderful society here on earth. Our Department of Atheism spends large amounts of money each year teaching them these things. We don’t allow any other propaganda.”</p>

<p>“But you do print Bibles here in the USSR?” I asked.</p>

<p>“Yes, we do,” she answered. “Our believers get all the Bibles they need, but they’re given out only through the church and we must have all the names.”</p>

<p>“But you do have religious freedom?”</p>

<p>“Yes, we have religious freedom.”</p>

<p>“Yet we can’t bring Bibles into the USSR?” I asked.</p>

<p>“No, we don’t allow that propaganda in our country.”</p>

<p>“The Bible is propaganda?”</p>

<p>“Yes.”</p>

<p>“But you print Bibles in your own country.”</p>

<p>“Yes.”</p>

<p>“Now I’m confused,” I remarked. “You say you have religious freedom, but we’re not allowed to bring Bibles into your country because they are propaganda. Yet you say you print Bibles right here in the Soviet Union.”</p>

<p>She nodded in agreement to each statement. I was surprised she didn’t see what was coming. “Then that means you’re printing anti-communist propaganda right in your own country,” I concluded.</p>

<p>Her reply was the cryptic, “But we have separation of church and state.” Then she added, “We teach our children there is no God. We don’t want them to believe in God.”</p>

<p>“But these Bibles are for believers, not nonbelievers.”</p>

<p>“Our believers have all the Bibles they need,” she repeated. “Even if I took your word that you’d only give Bibles to believers, what if one little booklet got into the hands of our young people and they read it and became believers? What then?” She was clearly worried about that possibility.</p>

<p>“Do you mean to tell me,” I answered, “that you can spend all that money every year on atheism, that you can teach your people in school from when they are very young that there is no God, and one little book could change all that? You’re awfully frightened of such a small thing, aren’t you? It must be a very powerful little book, then.”</p>

<p>“Big things start small,” she replied. As master propagandists, communists understood such things. She was determined not to be intimidated.</p>

<p>Jeff took the lead then and fought to get anything across the border we could. First, he petitioned for our Russian Bibles on the basis of the alleged religious freedom in the Soviet Union. When they gave no ground, he asked for one Russian Bible for each of us, reasoning that we were all Bible students and were learning a bit of Russian. One Russian Bible was supposed to be allowed. They wouldn’t budge. Finally, he asked for one Bible for himself because he was a seminary graduate and could speak and read Russian. They wouldn’t allow that, either.</p>

<p>They cleaned us out, allowing only one English Bible apiece. They even took the English song books I’d brought from my church, a Baptist newspaper in Romanian given to us in Bucharest, and a propaganda booklet about Romanian history printed in English by the Romanian government for tourists.</p>

<p>That was a chuckle. The border guards had been so shaken by the Bibles, they grabbed anything that looked suspicious, even communist literature printed by their neighbors.</p>

<p>Feigning surprise, I asked if their government was still on good terms with the Romanians. They assured us they were. They were visibly embarrassed by their mistake, though, and returned the booklet to us.</p>

<p>Our reaction to our ordeal followed three stages. When the guards first found the Scriptures, we were frightened. We didn’t know what would happen to us. Would they detain us? Would they lock us up? Would we be expelled from the country at the border?</p>

<p>After our initial anxiety wore off, we were a bit amused. It was comical how shaken up the officials were over Bibles in our luggage and what ridiculous lengths they went through searching for more contraband.</p>

<p>During the interrogation, though, we got annoyed at the way we were being treated and the questions we were expected to answer, even questions about activities in countries we’d visited before theirs. This, I felt, was none of their business.</p>

<p>Their audacious statements about religious freedom angered us, as well. Detaining us for more than six hours at the border because we had a few Bibles belied their words.</p>

<p>After signing a document acknowledging we had been officially warned it was illegal to bring Bibles into the Soviet Union, we were finally allowed to enter the country and continue on our itinerary to Kiev.</p>

<h2>Kiev, Ukraine, USSR—Monday, July 26</h2>

<p>In Kiev, we made our way carefully to our contact’s home. There we met Lydia Vins, the mother of imprisoned Georgi Vins, a Baptist leader in the Ukraine and an important Christian dissident in the Soviet Union.</p>

<p>Georgi had been found guilty of “damaging the interests of citizens under the pretext of religious activity.” He was sentenced to five years in a Siberian labor camp followed by five years of internal exile.</p>

<p>Jeff translated while Lydia shared the plight of Christians in Kiev. Young people had it especially hard, she said. They weren’t allowed to go to university because of their Christian testimony but rather were consigned to jobs of hard labor. Because of their long hours, they had little time for Christian activities.</p>

<p>Even believers with advanced degrees—doctors and engineers—worked the lowest manual-labor jobs alongside the young people—sweeping streets with hand brooms, shoveling coal, cleaning public buildings and public toilets, for example.</p>

<p>Georgi’s daughter, Natasha, had been kicked out of medical school because of her faith, then went underground working on Christian publications (all religious literature in the USSR was printed “underground”). She saw her family once every nine months or so.</p>

<p>Lydia told us there were 86 believers in prison for their faith in the Ukraine at the time. Life was hard for them, and many never survived their terms. Fear of arrest and prison hung over the head of every believer living what we would consider an ordinary Christian life.</p>

<p>Teaching children about the Bible, for instance, was a particularly egregious offense. Violators earned three-year prison sentences and sometimes had their children taken from them. Letters sent to prisoners were rarely received.</p>

<p>As Lydia spoke, there were certain words she wouldn’t risk speaking aloud— words like “prison,” “underground,” and “suffer”—but instead used sign language to communicate.</p>

<p>In the background, the short wave radio we’d given them as a gift had been playing. One of the older men located a Christian broadcast where the Bible was being read. All was quiet as the announcer read Scripture in Russian.</p>

<p>I had a strange sensation watching the scene. The Christians hung on every word coming from the shortwave. It was as if they were under siege, anxiously listening to news from the front of an imminent invasion bringing rescue. They longed for Christ, yet at the same time had great joy in the Holy Spirit in the midst of suffering.</p>

<h2>Rovno, Ukraine, USSR—Wednesday, July 28</h2>

<p>We pulled up to our “first class” hotel—or the Soviet version of it—tired and happy to get out of our tents for a night. We quickly set up in our rooms on the fourth floor.</p>

<p>Though the rooms were adequate, it was hard to relax. Jeff, in particular, felt uncomfortable. We’d been warned in the West that our lodgings would be on the fourth floor. All Americans were billeted there since all those rooms were bugged. Everything we said was being monitored, and that made us uneasy.</p>

<p>When Jeff and Lance first tried to connect with our Christian contact in Rovno, the old woman who answered the door didn’t respond well to their greeting. We learned later that the other Christians were away at a secret gathering, leaving the elderly lady behind. She wasn’t taking chances with strangers at her door.</p>

<p>We fared better the next day. We made for the home just after breakfast, arriving in pairs at different times by different routes to avoid detection. We were ushered into a small apartment with a tiny kitchen and a medium-sized living room just large enough for three beds against the wall, a few chairs, and a small table. I never saw a bathroom. These were by far the poorest Christians we’d visited.</p>

<p>Three women shared the living space with their three well-behaved children. There were no men. The husbands were all in prison—three, five, and 10 years—for the crime of sharing the gospel.</p>

<p>As we talked, an older Christian man came to the door. When he entered the room, Jeff quickly warned Lance and me, in English, to prepare for a kiss…on the lips. Russian Christians took literally the scriptural admonition to greet each other with a holy kiss. Our new visitor threw his strong arms around each of us, gave us a robust bear hug and the Christian greeting Jeff had promised. After those initial “formalities,” he told us his story.</p>

<p>He’d become a Christian in 1918 during the Russian revolution. Though now over 65 years old, he was still stout, full of life, and full of the Holy Spirit. His head had been completely shaved, and his broad smile displayed a complete set of silvery teeth.</p>

<p>He told us he’d been at a Christian meeting in the country when someone betrayed him. The authorities took him outside and beat him mercilessly on his hands, on the back of his neck, and on his head and face. They knocked out every one of his teeth and left him in the road to die.</p>

<p>While he lay there in the dirt, though, a wonderful thing happened. Jesus came to him in a vision, he told us, and personally ministered to him, assuring him his suffering was not in vain.</p>

<p>Hours later, someone found him and took him to the city, where he was hospitalized for two months recovering from his wounds. His crime: sharing his faith.</p>

<p>The old man’s story was gripping, but what amazed me most was his attitude. He wasn’t angry or bitter. Rather, he could barely contain his excitement as he gave us the details of his ordeal. He spoke standing up, talking rapidly, hands moving around his head indicating where the blows had landed. He sat down just long enough for Jeff to translate, then he was on his feet again, continuing his story. His face beamed, and sometimes he couldn’t hold back his laughter.</p>

<p>I was awestruck. Here was a man who could talk about severe suffering for Christ and still laugh with joy.</p>

<p>As we talked, we learned more about the economic struggles of Christians in the Ukraine. Working the lowest jobs, earning two rubles (about 40 cents) a day, many could barely keep their families fed. Those in that home were short on clothing, especially the children, but they thought the believers living in the country had it worse. Those were the poor ones, not them.</p>

<p>As we readied to leave, we circled together while these Soviet believers prayed for us. I couldn’t understand their words, but their tone and manner were unmistakable. They prayed like they were in God’s very presence, tears streaming down their faces, interceding as if pleading with God for their very lives. Maybe they were.</p>

<h2>Saturday, August 21, 1976</h2>

<p>I was up early and at the train station in Prague by 7:00 a.m. My companions had commitments in Munich, so they drove west while I traveled solo by train south towards Linz, Austria, happy to leave the Iron Curtain countries behind me.</p>

<p>While struggling at the platform to decipher the train schedule, a friendly Bohemian university student named Ava came to my rescue. She was traveling on the same route, so I followed her lead, and we both settled in together in our coach.</p>

<p>Since my own paternal forebears were Bohemians from Prague, we shared a common bond. When she invited me to stay with her family overnight at her village home in South Bohemia, I accepted.</p>

<p>It meant a slight change in my itinerary—which was verboten in the East—but I did have an extra day on my visa, so I threw caution to the wind, hopped off the train in Czeske Budejovice, and headed east with Ava by bus.</p>

<p>We arrived at Třeboň—a small town whose basic layout was virtually unchanged since the 14<sup>th</sup> century—and walked a kilometer or so to Ava’s modest family cottage. Though an unexpected guest, I was welcomed with open arms. Ava’s home was a cozy dwelling, and her parents were warm and genial. They couldn’t speak English, but Ava did an amazing job translating given her limited English.</p>

<p>Ava’s mother prepared a delicious meal for us, and after dinner we chatted casually around the table. When I happened to mention I’d been to Poland weeks earlier, Ava’s father asked if I’d visited Auschwitz. I told him I had. He then began to recount his remarkable experiences there as a concentration camp prisoner during the war.</p>

<p>Ava’s dad had survived nearly two years in Auschwitz-Birkenau from 1943 to 1945. He escaped when the Russians attacked and the few German guards who were left fled south.</p>

<p>With Ava translating line for line, her father then unburdened himself of his painful memories, describing unthinkable activities he was forced to participate in under Nazi totalitarianism. I was transfixed, gripped by the continuous, cathartic flow of information. It was the first time Ava had heard his story, too.</p>

<p>As he recounted his experiences, he took out a paper napkin and methodically sketched from memory the details of the camp’s layout, adding numbers for body counts for different time periods.</p>

<p>When he finally finished, I asked if I could have the napkin as a keepsake, a memento of our meeting together. He was unwilling, afraid it would be found and bring him more grief, even after 30 years had passed. Instead, he destroyed the sketch right at the table. Czechoslovakia still had extermination camps, and Ava’s father still lived in fear.</p>

<h2>Present Day</h2>

<p>I share my account here not as a mere reminiscence of past adventures. Rather, I mean it to be a warning for the present.</p>

<p>I learned firsthand what it’s like for people to live in a truly oppressive society. What I saw there then is what I’m beginning to see here now. Former Soviet bloc émigrés also see it clearly.<a href="#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title="">[2]</a> Do any of these sound familiar to you?</p>

<ul>
	<li>“Separation of church and state” used to justify shutting Christian ideas (and sometimes people) out of the public debate</li>
	<li>Christians rejected from university programs or fired from their jobs because of their “subversive” convictions</li>
	<li>Primary level public education used to indoctrinate children spiritually and politically, promoting a secular morality unrelated to God—and often contrary to God—and not allowing any other “propaganda”</li>
	<li>The academy vigorously promoting Marxist Leninism with the promise that man will solve his own problems and build a wonderful society here on earth, free of oppression</li>
	<li>Willingly surrendering our privacy to tech companies for the sake of convenience as millions install listening devices in their own homes<a href="#_edn3" name="_ednref3" title="">[3]</a></li>
	<li>People whispering words like “homosexual” in conversations for fear of attracting censure</li>
	<li>Arguments made against religious freedom on the grounds that Christians are, shall we say, “damaging the interests of citizens under the pretext of religious activity” (e.g., ��You can’t use ‘freedom of religion’ as a cover for hate!”)</li>
</ul>

<p>Yes, it’s already happening, not in far-off places, but here in our own country and in our own communities.</p>

<p>Never forget: Ideas have consequences. In the next issue of <em>Solid Ground</em>, I’ll give more detail on ideas that are permeating our communities, corrupting our freedoms, and corroding our souls.</p>

<div>
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%">
<div id="edn1">
<p><a href="#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title="">[1]</a> The modest progenitor of the SUV.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn2">
<p><a href="#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title="">[2]</a> For details, see Rod Dreher’s excellent <em>Live Not by Lies</em> (New York City: Sentinel, 2020).</p>
</div>

<div id="edn3">
<p><a href="#_ednref3" name="_edn3" title="">[3]</a> Alexa, anyone?</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>

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title: Will Faith as Small as a Mustard Seed Save You?
topic: Theology
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 01/05/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/will-faith-as-small-as-a-mustard-seed-save-you-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>I don’t like the word “faith.” It’s not the biblical idea that’s the problem. It’s how faith is understood in our culture. Too many people believe faith is blind, wishful thinking.</p>

<p>Scripture, however, defines it differently (see Hebrews 11). Biblical faith is best characterized as trust. We don’t put our trust in something for no reason. We don’t blindly believe anyone. Rather, we put our trust in what or whom we have good reason to believe is trustworthy.</p>

<p>Non-Christians aren’t the only ones guilty of misunderstanding faith. Christians can mistake its meaning in a different way. For example, if a Christian doubts his faith, is he still saved? Is there a certain amount of faith that is necessary to be honored by God? How much faith do you need to be saved?</p>

<p>The problem with this question is that it presumes a mistaken notion of faith. The efficacy of faith is dependent not on the <em>subject</em> who expresses faith, but on the <em>object</em> of faith. It doesn’t matter how much or how little faith you have. It only matters in whom you place your faith.</p>

<p>It reminds me of something I notice when I fly. Two kinds of people stand out to me when I’m on a plane: the frequent flyer and the first-timer. Both often have their eyes closed during taxi and takeoff, but for different reasons. The former finds flying so mundane, he’s sleeping. The latter is so scared, he’s saying his final prayer. One has total confidence, while the other has total trepidation.</p>

<p>Here’s the key question: If both travelers are on the same plane, which one is more likely to arrive safely at his destination? The answer is obvious: both. Whether the plane crashes or safely carries its passengers has nothing to do with any occupant’s emotions or confidence in flying. Rather, it has everything to do with the plane itself: the pilots, the aircraft, the plane’s design, and its mechanics.</p>

<p>Though one passenger might have little trust in the plane, it will not affect his outcome. What matters is what he’s put his small amount of trust in. As long as his trust causes him to step onto the plane, it’s the plane that carries him securely, not his level of confidence in it. It doesn’t matter <em>at all</em> whether he doubts or has full confidence in the plane. All that matters is whether the plane can do what it’s supposed to do.</p>

<p>The same is true with our faith in Christ. It doesn’t matter how much or how little faith you have. What matters is <em>who</em> you put your faith in. You could struggle with doubt, while another believer is confident in his faith. Neither one is “more saved” than the other. So long as you both put your faith in Jesus, you will be saved.</p>

<p>It’s no wonder Jesus tells his disciples that if they have faith the size of a mustard seed (a very small seed), they can speak to a mountain and it will move (Matt. 17:20). Notice that the size or amount of their faith is irrelevant. What matters is that they <em>have</em> faith and <em>in whom</em> that faith is placed.</p>

<p>It’s also interesting to note that the only two people Jesus commends in the Gospels for having “great faith” are not among the Jesus followers you’d expect, like Peter, James, or John. In fact, they aren’t likely even observant of the Mosaic Law. In one case (Matt. 8:5–13), a Roman centurion asks Jesus to heal his paralyzed servant. He is rewarded for his trust that Jesus has the authority to simply say a word and heal his servant. In another instance (Matt. 15:21–28), a Canaanite woman begs Jesus to heal her demon-possessed daughter. Her request is also granted after she provides a clever response to Jesus’ apparent reluctance to heal. In both cases, it wasn’t about how much or how little faith they had, but in <em>whom </em>they placed their faith. Jesus was the object of their faith, and since he was a trustworthy and capable person to carry out their request, their loved ones were healed.</p>

<p>Faith’s effectiveness is not commensurate with how much confidence we can muster. It’s not dependent on us. Our faith can wax and wane throughout our life. Whether our faith can save us is dependent on <em>who</em> we put our faith in. Thankfully, the one whom our faith is in is trustworthy and capable.</p>
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title: Three Reasons to Study Scripture in 2021
topic: Christian Living
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 01/12/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/three-reasons-to-study-scripture-in-2021
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Here’s a basic but good reminder: Christians need to study Scripture. We’ve begun a new year. Why not resolve to do it in 2021? There are at least three reasons why. These are <em>not</em> meant to be the top three reasons or the most important ones. They are just three reasons that came to mind.</p>

<p><strong>First, as an ambassador for Christ (2 Cor. 5:20), we need to know our Sovereign.</strong> If our role is to represent Christ, then we need to know his views and the message he wants to convey to the world. Studying Scripture is one of the best ways to do that. As Greg Koukl says, “You don’t need to be a theologian, but you can’t know nothing.”</p>

<p><strong>Second, by studying Scripture and learning the truth, it becomes easier to spot the error.</strong> You’ve probably heard the story of how federal agents learn to spot counterfeit bills. They don’t study fake money. Rather, they study real bills so that when a counterfeit comes along, they easily spot it. The same is true with recognizing false ideas. One of the best ways to protect yourself from being duped by counterfeit theology is to study Scripture. Learning to <a href="/w/why-study-false-ideas-?" rel="noopener" target="_blank">recognize false ideas</a> is beneficial for two reasons: so you don’t succumb to false ideas (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=col+2%3A8&amp;version=NASB" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Col. 2:8</a>), and so you can destroy false ideas (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+cor+10%3A3-5&amp;version=NASB1995" rel="noopener" target="_blank">2 Cor. 10:3–5</a>).</p>

<p><strong>Third, Scripture informs our life decisions.</strong> If you’re a Christian, there’s a very good chance you will attempt to base life decisions (both minor and major ones) on the Christian worldview. The first step to deepen your understanding of the faith is to read and study the Bible. <a href="/w/reading-through-the-bible-isn-t-a-goal-it-s-a-lifestyle" rel="noopener" target="_blank">This should not be a goal. It’s a lifestyle</a>.</p>

<p>I’d like to add one final thought. Since you’re going to be reading the Bible, why not also take time to learn <a href="https://youtu.be/ut0jA0OvQ5g" rel="noopener" target="_blank">how to properly interpret it</a>? Your Bible study is only as good as <a href="/w/you-can-t-obey-god-unless-you-know-what-he-said" rel="noopener" target="_blank">your interpretive method</a>. The good news is that <a href="/w/reading-the-bible-requires-rules-we-already-know" rel="noopener" target="_blank">reading the Bible properly requires rules you probably already know</a>. Now, go do it!</p>
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title: How to Think through the Ethics of the COVID-19 Vaccines
topic: Bioethics
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 01/26/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/how-to-think-through-the-ethics-of-the-covid-19-vaccines
content:
            <div> 
		<p><a href="https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/author/randerso/">Ryan T. Anderson</a> recently spoke at Colorado Christian University’s Centennial Institute, outlining the ethical issues involved with the COVID-19 vaccines. Even if you end up disagreeing with him in some way, it’s worth listening to <a href="https://youtu.be/GeKPeSecwaA?t=431">the discussion</a> in its entirety in order to get a better grasp of both the particular issues involved and the categories ethicists have developed in order to think through issues like these.</p>

<p>Here’s what Anderson covers:</p>

<ul>
	<li>The ethics of developing a vaccine</li>
	<li>The ethics of receiving a vaccine</li>
	<li>The ethics of distributing a vaccine</li>
	<li>The ethics of a government mandating a vaccine</li>
	<li>The ethics of businesses requiring a vaccine</li>
</ul>

<p>You can watch the video <a href="https://youtu.be/GeKPeSecwaA?t=431">here</a>.</p>
</div>

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title: Keep Moving Forward
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 01/19/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/keep-moving-forward-1
content:
            <div> 
		<p>It’s hard to avoid feeling discouraged these days. These feel like unprecedented times, and in many ways, they are. However, one thing is not unprecedented: sin. The fallen nature of man has always been here since Adam. It expresses itself one way and then another, depending on the fashions of the time. Even when it’s restrained for a time, it is always there, working in the background, waiting to break out into the open. So while it’s easy to let yourself feel lost and even helpless in the face of a rapidly changing culture, in a sense nothing has changed—not the root problem and not our commanded response. The problem continues to be sin as expressed according to the bad ideas of the time, and the response commanded of us continues to be to “destroy speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God” (2 Cor. 10:5) in a way that accords with the constraints of righteousness.</p>

<p>I was reminded of this again as I read Carl Trueman’s <em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Triumph-Modern-Self-Individualism/dp/1433556332/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=1610997674&amp;sr=1-1">The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self</a>: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution</em>, a book explaining the intellectual roots behind the cultural issues we now find ourselves facing (<a href="https://www.challies.com/book-reviews/the-rise-and-triumph-of-the-modern-self/">see a short summary and review here</a>). He reminds us that while our <em>particular</em> situation may be new, our task has not changed:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>[T]his book is not a lament for a lost golden age or even for the parlous state of culture as we now face it. Lamentation is popular in many conservative and Christian circles, and I have indulged in it a few times myself…. But in terms of positive action, lamentation offers little and delivers less. As for the notion of some lost golden age, it is truly very hard for any competent historian to be nostalgic. What past times were better than the present? An era before antibiotics when childbirth or even minor cuts might lead to septicemia and death? The great days of the nineteenth century when the church was culturally powerful and marriage was between one man and one woman for life but little children worked in factories and swept chimneys? Perhaps the Great Depression? The Second World War? The era of Vietnam? <em>Every age has had its darkness and its dangers. The task of the Christian is not to whine about the moment in which he or she lives but to understand its problems and respond appropriately to them</em>. [Emphasis added.]</p>
</blockquote>

<p>This is the task of every Christian, but especially of you—the Christian who has a God-given desire to study ideas, explain them to others, and reach out to those who disagree, the Christian who visits Stand to Reason for just this purpose. Now is not the time to give up or despair. Now is the precise time for which we have been training our mind and character. As Paul said to Timothy,</p>

<blockquote>
<p>[E]vil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of…. (2 Tim. 3:13–14)</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Continue. Keep moving forward. Keep doing the job you’ve been called to do, speaking the truth in love and righteousness for the good of your neighbor, to the glory of God.</p>
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title: Want to Know How I Fight off Discouragement?
topic: Christian Living
author: Greg Koukl
date: 02/02/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/want-to-know-how-i-fight-off-discouragement-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Lately I’ve had to fight my impulse to whine, pout, and play the victim. I am not happy with recent developments. Am I the only one who is fighting discouragement?</p>

<p>In the last 12 months, a massive number of Americans have suffered virtual house arrest in a long-term lockdown that cost tens of millions of citizens their jobs and their ability to properly care for their families.</p>

<p>COVID-19 took a devastating toll on multitudes. To make matters worse, countless others struggle with health issues that went untreated for months due to concerns about doctor and hospital overloads due to the coronavirus. Many will not survive as a result.</p>

<p>We’re limping along after one of the longest, bitterest political fights in American history, and wounds are still wide open. Rioting and carnage persisted for months in some locales, and police response was little to nil. Confidence in the rule of law is at an all-time low.</p>

<p>As believers, we’ve gone through a season with Christian services online, in parking lots, in backyards, inside churches (with people properly distanced), in parking lots again, or not meeting at all. Many Christians, discouraged by all the confusion, have lost their weekly church-going rhythm entirely.</p>

<p>There is a full-court press against virtually everything Christianity stands for, with attacks coming from every quarter on the existence of God, the authority and reliability of the Bible, the resurrection, the blood atonement, the identity—and even the historical existence—of Jesus, just to name a few.</p>

<p>Followers of Christ are increasingly <em>personae non gratae</em> in the public square, viewed by many as oppressors of the marginalized—especially of those with unbiblical sexual practices or radical views on gender. Consequently, many churches are caving to the culture and going “progressive,” offering what looks like a kinder and gentler version of Christianity that fits secular sensibilities yet denies the very Master who bought them (2 Pet. 2:1).</p>

<p>What is happening here?</p>

<p>There’s a simple answer to that question. There’s a simple explanation for why we often feel outmatched and outmaneuvered at every turn, a simple reason why the scoreboard always seems to read the same thing: Lions 10, Christians 0. Listen to Jesus:</p>

<p>A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his master…. If they have called the head of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign the members of his household! (Matt. 10:24–25)</p>

<p>Simply put, <em>Jesus warned us in advance</em>. This is exactly how our Savior was treated, and this is exactly what he said our lot would be.</p>

<p>We should never expect a fair shake, nor whine when it is not given. We are not to play the victim. That is disloyalty to Christ. “Followers of Christ flinch at times from the pain of wounds and the smart of slights,” Os Guinness wrote, “but that cost is in the contract of the way of the cross…. No child of a sovereign God whom we can call our Father is ever a victim or in a minority.”</p>

<p>This is why Jesus finished his warning with, “Therefore do not fear them, for there is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known” (26).</p>

<p>Listen carefully to those words: “<em>Do not fear them</em>.” Jesus is <em>with</em> us. And he promises a final day of reckoning. As one person put it, “There is a justice, and one day they shall feel it.” But even ultimate victory should not be our concern.</p>

<p>If you want to know how I fight off discouragement, consider these words of Alan Keyes that I had posted in my study for a season: “It is not for us to calculate our victory or fear our defeat, but to do our duty and leave the rest in God’s hands.”</p>

<p>At STR, we measure our legitimacy by faithfulness and obedience to Christ, who alone will bring the increase. The most important gauge of our success will not be our numbers or even our impact, but our fidelity to Jesus.</p>

<p>When the odds are against us, we do not quit or even slow down. We fight. We do not fear the opposition, we do not whine, or pout, or play the victim. We take what comes our way, hold our heads high, and stay engaged. Because of Jesus’ promise, we are of good cheer:</p>

<p>These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world. (Jn. 16:33)</p>

<p>Every day, STR stands steadfast, training ambassadors for Christ to go into the field. We show up for a debate, we do a presentation, we write an article, we post a video—we provide all the resources so you can answer God’s call to faithful engagement in whatever circumstance he’s placed you.</p>
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title: Pro-Gay Theology Invents a New Sin
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 02/09/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/pro-gay-theology-invents-a-new-sin
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Imagine you heard someone say this: It’s true the Bible condemns adultery, but only “sexual adultery.” That’s when you cheat on your spouse out of a raw, carnal desire for another person. Seeking out extramarital sex for novel stimulation is obviously sin. That’s why it’s condemned in Scripture. “Spiritual adultery” is different. Sometimes, after being married for a while, you realize there is a fundamental incompatibility between you and the person you’re married to. Your spouse is just not the person God meant for you. Instead, you’ve met someone else whom you recognize as your soul mate. Having sex with such a person would not be adulterous because it’s not merely a sexual deed but more akin to forming a one-flesh union out of love. It’s a spiritual act and, hence, not sin.</p>

<p>If what I’ve written so far sounds crazy and wrong, I’ve got good news for you. You probably accept the biblical sexual ethic that the church has embraced for two millennia: adultery is sin. It’s obvious there is no such thing as spiritual adultery that’s different from the kind of adultery we’ve always known the Bible to condemn. That’s an arbitrary and unbiblical distinction. Furthermore, if you think such a distinction is pure fabrication, then you should also reject <a href="/w/a-reformation-the-church-doesn-t-need-part-1" rel="noopener" target="_blank">modern expressions of pro-gay theology</a> because they take a similarly misguided approach.</p>

<p>Homosexual sex <em>is</em> sin, say pro-gay theology advocates. Yes, the Bible <em>does</em> condemn homosexuality, but only abusive, coercive, or exploitive forms. For example, the Bible condemns homosexual gang rape (e.g., Sodom and Gomorrah), master-slave sodomy, and pederasty (men who have sex with boys). These are obviously sinful acts involving abusive forms of homosexual sex.</p>

<p>But there’s a “different” kind of homosexual sex, they say. It’s not abusive, exploitive, or coercive. Rather, it’s the kind of homosexuality that’s expressed within loving, consensual relationships between gay men or lesbian women. Since the vast majority of modern-day same-sex relationships are characterized by mutual love, consent, and non-exploitive behavior, the biblical prohibitions don’t apply to these modern expressions of love.</p>

<p>Notice what pro-gay theology advocates have done. They’ve invented a new type of sin. They’ve taken an existing sin (<a href="/w/what-does-the-bible-say-about-homosexuality-" rel="noopener" target="_blank">homosexual sex</a>) and divided it up into two flavors: sinful homosexual sex and non-sinful homosexual sex—a distinction foreign to the corpus of Scripture. It’s no longer homosexual sex that’s sin. It’s <em>abusive </em>homosexual sex that’s sin. The added adjective is a qualifier that creates a new sin. Now, people can allegedly sidestep the biblical prohibition against homosexual sex.</p>

<p>It’s as equally mistaken as dividing the existing sin of adultery into two flavors: sexual adultery and spiritual adultery. Adultery has always been sin, but adding an adjective like “sexual” or “spiritual” creates a distinction also foreign to the biblical text. Now, people who believe they failed to marry their soul mate can allegedly sidestep the sin of adultery.</p>

<p>The problem with such a distinction is that it’s foreign to Scripture. The Bible doesn’t condemn a particular kind of homosexual acts. <a href="/w/how-pro-gay-theology-is-undermined-in-one-step" rel="noopener" target="_blank">It simply condemns homosexual acts</a>. For example, notice the straightforward reading of Leviticus 18:22: “You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.” There’s nothing in the text that suggests that this banned behavior is only referring to abusive or exploitive homosexual sex. It is a simple prohibition against homosexual sex. The <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=lev+18%3A21&amp;version=NASB1995" rel="noopener" target="_blank">verse before</a> forbids sacrificing your children to Molech, and the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=lev+18%3A23&amp;version=NASB1995" rel="noopener" target="_blank">verse after</a> prohibits bestiality. Therefore, nothing even in the context suggests Leviticus 18:22 is limited to abusive, coercive, or exploitive homosexuality. Neither is there an exception made for loving, consensual relationships. It’s just a categorical prohibition against homosexual sex proper.</p>

<p>The same is true of <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=lev%2020%3A13&amp;version=NASB1995" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Leviticus 20:13</a>, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=romans+1%3A26-27&amp;version=NASB1995" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Romans 1:26–27</a>, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+cor+6%3A9-11&amp;version=NASB1995" rel="noopener" target="_blank">1 Corinthians 6:9–11</a>, and <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+tim1%3A9-11&amp;version=NASB1995" rel="noopener" target="_blank">1 Timothy 1:9–11</a>. None of these verses makes a distinction between abusive and loving homosexual sex. Pro-gay theology attempts to invent a new type of sin in order to sidestep an existing sin. That’s a recent invention.</p>
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title: The Fear of “Phobic”
topic: Christian Living
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 02/03/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/the-fear-of-phobic-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Beloved <em>Harry Potter</em> author J.K. Rowling is no longer loved. In recent tweets, she expressed her view that men who identify as women are, in fact, men. Though this view is consistent with what virtually every person throughout all of human history has believed, she was branded transphobic. Checkmate, Rowling! In case you didn’t know, calling someone transphobic is supposed to be bad.</p>

<p>There are a lot of terms that end with “phobic”: homophobic, Islamophobic, xenophobic, and transphobic. If someone expresses disagreement with the mainstream narrative on homosexuality, Islam, foreigners, or transgender people, they’ll be slapped with a “phobic” label. Although a phobia has been historically understood to be a fear of something (e.g., arachnophobia is a fear of spiders), adding the suffix today is intended to signal that you hold a bigoted view on that subject…and that’s bad. You’re supposed to be so afraid of being labeled phobic that you’ll change your position or, at least, never express it again in public. If you do, prepare to be <a href="/w/god-was-canceling-people-before-it-was-cool">canceled</a>.</p>

<p>I’ll admit there are times when using a “phobic” term, like Islamophobic, might be legitimate. I’ve met people who are genuinely fearful and angry with Muslims. It’s rare, though. That’s why I don’t believe you need to have a fear of being called “phobic” (would that be phobiphobic?). Here are three reasons why you shouldn’t let the label bother you.</p>

<p><strong>First, calling you “phobic” is intended to dismiss you or your view.</strong> Instead of providing a substantive response to your position, sometimes people will try to dismiss it. Once you’ve been labeled “homophobic,” there’s nothing left for you to do but (allegedly) cower and walk away. After all, you’ve been identified as the bigot that you are and now need to bow out from further discourse. Dismissing your position is similar to the next mistake.</p>

<p><strong>Second, calling you “phobic” is often merely a form of name-calling.</strong> In logic, this is called an <em>ad-hominem</em> and is recognized as an illicit approach to engaging someone you disagree with. It occurs when someone attacks you or your character instead addressing your argument with a reasoned response. Elementary school children deal out <em>ad-hominem</em> attacks to each other at recess. They don’t have a civil means to express their anger, so they resort to name-calling. “Dork,” “dweeb,” or “loser” were the go-to jabs when I was a kid. Sadly, some of the same students grew up and now use the same means of engagement. Only today, their disparaging terms sound more sophisticated (e.g., “xenophobic”). But at its core, this is simply name-calling.</p>

<p><strong>Third, it’s often an irrelevant distraction from the topic at hand.</strong> In logic, this is called a red herring. It’s a faulty way to dialogue because it diverts the conversation away from the main topic and inhibits productive discourse.</p>

<p>One time, I was answering questions about abortion at a secular university event. After multiple failed attempts to undermine my scientific defense that the unborn is a human being, someone got up to the microphone and said, “You’re just anti-woman.” It’s worth noting the event topic was about whether the unborn is a human being. Whether I’m anti-woman (or pro-woman) has <em>no</em> bearing on whether the evidence I provided was true. Even if I were anti-woman, how would that affect the scientific evidence I presented? I could be anti-woman, homophobic, racist—I could be Hitler—and it would have absolutely no impact on the arguments I presented that day. Whether or not the unborn is a human being is solely based on the merits of my evidence, not on my identity or character.</p>

<p>In the same way, whether or not JK Rowling is transphobic has no bearing on whether or not a transwoman is a woman. Rowling’s character—good or bad—is irrelevant. Calling her transphobic shifts the attention away from the question at hand and focuses it on her.</p>

<p>I don’t know what’s led our society to sidestep rational discourse and resort to calling people names, but it’s unfair, irrelevant, and immature. That’s why there’s no need to be afraid to get slapped with a “phobic” label. In most cases, it’s an illegitimate attack.</p>
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title: When Spiritual Heroes Fall
topic: Christian Living
author: Greg Koukl
date: 02/19/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/when-spiritual-heroes-fall
content:
            <div> 
		<p>It is now fairly common knowledge that Ravi Zacharias—a spiritual hero to multitudes—had for many years been living a secret life of manipulative and abusive sexual immorality, spiritual deceit, and professional duplicity.</p>

<p>It is hard to imagine anything so unsettling as learning that a person of such influence fell as far and as hard as he did. It knocks the wind out of us, gives ugly opportunity to our critics, and leaves many furious to the core.</p>

<p>Stunned, shocked, and shaken, some don’t know how to process this news and don’t even know where to start. If that describes you, I’d like to offer five principles to help you get going again.</p>

<p><strong>First, guard your own soul. </strong>The details of any pattern of immorality are important for the main players to know. Agreed. Paul says dark deeds must be exposed (Eph. 5:11)­—partly to rebuke the guilty as a warning to others (1 Tim. 5:20), and also, in this case, to determine the extent of the damage so victims can be vindicated and cared for. He says next, though, that “it is disgraceful even to <em>speak</em> of those things done in secret,” that is, to dwell on the evil that has come to light.</p>

<p>Solomon warns that a whisperer’s words penetrate deep into our hearts (Prov. 18:8). When you hear vile things about anyone, the words and images stick. Even when true, the information can still sully your soul and corrupt you.</p>

<p>Trust me on this. For most of us, the less we know about the specifics, the better. “Be innocent in what is evil,” Paul counsels (Rom. 16:19). When you dig into the dirt, you’re going to get dirty. Sin is ugly, so steer clear of the sordid details unless you have a genuine need to know. Most of us don’t. It won’t help you, and it won’t help the victims.</p>

<p>So, guard yourself by staying out of the skirmish. It’s a principle I’ve followed for years, and I’m the better for it. The less the talk, the less the damage. “Where there are many words, transgression is unavoidable,”&nbsp;Proverbs says. Let the proper people right the wrong; the rest of us can let it go.</p>

<p><strong>Second, do not be surprised when sinners sin.</strong> When a spiritual icon tumbles, I’m shocked, but I am not shaken. I’m shocked because it’s inexcusable for someone in Christian leadership to sin egregiously and continuously. I’m not shaken, though, because I am aware of what human beings are capable of.</p>

<p>From the beginning, Jesus did not entrust himself to those who believed in him since he knew what was in man (Jn. 2:24–25). We know, too, if we take our Bibles seriously.</p>

<p>Sin crouches at the door of even the “greatest” among us. Everyone is vulnerable. Everyone is capable. How could a major figure suffer a major fall? Easy, if he is not vigilant, so be on your guard.</p>

<p>Christ is good, but he is the only one. Paul warned even “spiritual” Christians who were properly correcting others to look to themselves lest they also be tempted (Gal. 6:1). It is healthy to have heroes, to have people we look up to and aspire to emulate. It is not healthy to forget we’re all deeply, radically fallen, even our heroes.</p>

<p><strong>Third, remember, truth is still true. </strong>It is tempting—especially to outsiders—to denigrate Christianity because of the failings of a Christian leader. The impulse is understandable, but it’s a false move. One’s witness may be disqualified, to be sure, but the truth taught is not nullified.</p>

<p>Nothing about our convictions regarding God or salvation rests on the shoulders of any human being save Jesus of Nazareth.</p>

<p>The noble words or sound instruction of any fallen hero are no less noble or sound because of his failures. Whatever is true about Christianity or Christian virtue is just as true after a moral defeat as before. Whatever is true when spoken or written by a good man is still true when spoken or written by a bad man.</p>

<p>So, no one’s sin invalidates truth. Indeed, Paul rejoiced when Christ was proclaimed by <em>anyone</em>, even duplicitous men (Phil. 1:18). If you benefited from a hero who later fell, take heart. God uses even the worst of men to help the rest of us.</p>

<p><strong>Fourth, do not become cynical.</strong> The impulse is strong to cast a jaundiced eye towards other Christian leaders, wondering what secrets they may be hiding. Don’t do that. Do not allow failure of the few to cause suspicion of the many.</p>

<p>Yes, when respected leaders falter badly, it’s natural to wonder, <em>Who can I trust?</em> The answer is simple. Trust everyone you have no reason to mistrust, which is most people you know.</p>

<p>Will you be wrong sometimes? Yes, but rarely. The vast multitude of spiritual leaders live noble lives and serve the Lord with honor. Thinking charitably of them is a virtue and a healthy habit to nurture.</p>

<p><strong>Finally, firmly resolve to finish well.</strong> The goal of my life is to complete the course. When I finally cross over, I want to hear the words “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Make that your goal, as well.</p>

<p>Of course, we need help to do that. If there is darkness in your life, bring it into the light with a trusted friend, and its hold on you will weaken considerably. The Holy Spirit is committed to making you holy, too. Your part is to be vigilant and to fight sin to your last breath.</p>

<p>I cannot promise that these five principles will alleviate all your pain, quiet all your confusion, or quell all your anger when one of your spiritual heroes falls. These points have served me well for many years, though, and I trust they will guide you well, too.</p>
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title: Why We Can’t Reason from Fine-Tuning to a Multiverse
topic: Science
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 02/11/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/why-we-can-t-reason-from-fine-tuning-to-a-multiverse
content:
            <div> 
		<p>In a <em>Scientific American</em> article titled “<a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/our-improbable-existence-is-no-evidence-for-a-multiverse/">Our Improbable Existence Is No Evidence for a Multiverse</a>,” <a href="https://www.philipgoffphilosophy.com/about.html">Philip Goff</a> argues it’s faulty reasoning to conclude from the extraordinarily improbable fine-tuning of our universe that a multiverse exists.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>The hope is that [the multiverse] allows us to give a “monkeys on typewriters” explanation of the fine-tuning. If you have enough monkeys randomly jabbing away on typewriters, it becomes not so improbable that one will happen to write a bit of English. By analogy, if there are enough universes, with enough variation in the numbers in their physics, then it becomes statistically likely that one will happen to have the right numbers for life.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>He argues that this kind of reasoning employs the inverse gambler’s fallacy and then offers this analogy to show that the multiverse explanation does not explain the thing that needs explaining:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Consider the following analogy. You wake up with amnesia, with no clue as to how you got where you are. In front of you is a monkey bashing away on a typewriter, writing perfect English. This clearly requires explanation. You might think: “Maybe I’m dreaming…maybe this is a trained monkey…maybe it’s a robot.” What you would not think is “There must be lots of other monkeys around here, mostly writing nonsense.” You wouldn’t think this because what needs explaining is why <em>this</em> monkey—the only one you’ve actually observed—is writing English, and postulating other monkeys doesn’t explain what <em>this</em> monkey is doing….</p>

<p>Given how unlikely it is that an ordinary monkey would come up with “I love how yellow bananas are” just by randomly bashing away, you might suspect some kind of trick. What you would not conclude, however, is that there must be many other monkeys typing rubbish. Again, what you need explaining is why <em>Joey</em> [i.e., <em>this</em> monkey] is typing English, and the postulation of other monkeys doesn’t explain this. By analogy, what we need explaining is why the only universe we’ve ever observed is fine-tuned, and the postulation of other universes doesn’t account for this.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Read the <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/our-improbable-existence-is-no-evidence-for-a-multiverse/">full article</a> to see his responses to anticipated objections (e.g., the claim that the “selection effect” explains why we see a universe fine-tuned for life—that we should not be surprised we’re observing the kind of universe where observation by living beings is possible).</p>

<p>His conclusion:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>The reason some scientists take seriously the possibility of a multiverse in which the constants vary in different universes is that it seems to explain the fine-tuning. But on closer examination, the inference from fine-tuning to the multiverse proves to be instance of flawed reasoning. So, what should we make of the fine-tuning? Perhaps there is some other way of explaining it. Or perhaps we just got lucky.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Perhaps there is some other way of explaining it, indeed.</p>
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title: A Philosophical Argument against an Eternal Universe
topic: Philosophy
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 02/16/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/a-philosophical-argument-against-an-eternal-universe
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Reasonable Faith’s <a href="/w/a-simple-explanation-of-the-cosmological-argument">first video explaining the <em>kalam</em> cosmological argument</a> focused on scientific evidence to support its two premises—1) whatever begins to exist has a cause, and 2) the universe began to exist. Now they have a second video focusing on the second premise, giving philosophical arguments against the existence of an actual infinite:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>If the universe did not have a beginning, then the number of past events in the history of the universe is infinite. But that’s a problem because the existence of an actually infinite number of past events leads to absurdity. It’s metaphysically impossible. Why?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The video goes on to give illustrations that demonstrate why an actually infinite number of events is impossible. The conclusion? The universe had a beginning, and therefore the universe had a cause. Check out the video below.<br>
&nbsp;</p>

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title: Render to God
topic: Christian Living
author: Jonathan Noyes
date: 03/04/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/render-to-god
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Something has to change.</p>

<p>It’s time to make a shift. Blending into the world around us is no longer an option for the church. The culture rejects the Christian worldview and won’t be appeased by anything short of total ideological surrender, so it’s time for us to get <em>counter</em>-cultural.</p>

<p>When I think about living a counter-cultural life, Jesus comes to mind. When the Pharisees asked if paying taxes to Rome was lawful, Jesus said, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Mk. 12:17).</p>

<p>According to Jesus, some things <em>do</em> belong to Caesar (though not everything Caesar <em>thinks</em> is his belongs to him). So render to Caesar what is properly his. But, more importantly, render to God the things that are God’s.</p>

<p>What belongs to God? We do. Rendering to God means continuing to be faithful in all areas of life, even when we live in a distinctly anti-Christian culture. How do we do that? Here’s what I suggest.</p>

<p>First, God’s people don’t seek the world’s approval. Instead, we seek the approval of One. When we try to curry the favor of the world, we’re rendering to Caesar what belongs to God.</p>

<p>James reminds us, <em>“Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” </em>(Jas. 4:4).</p>

<p>Caesar’s offer of friendship is false. He turns on us the moment we present God’s truth. There is no neutrality here, no middle ground, no meeting the culture where it’s at, hoping to gain acceptance.</p>

<p>Second, God’s people don’t compromise what the Bible says about controversial issues like human sexuality, identity, and abortion.</p>

<p>The world doesn’t want us to speak our message clearly, so it condemns the words we use because of the ideas behind them. When we use words like sin, rebellion, salvation, and repentance, we are labeled hateful, bigoted, and intolerant. Worse, we might even be accused of committing hate crimes. Still, we remain resolute.</p>

<p>Remember, though, we don’t have license to be unloving, nasty, or mean, but we also can’t give in to the cultural pressures to compromise our message. Instead, we stay salty.</p>

<p>Finally, God’s people remain levelheaded in all circumstances. We do not allow ourselves to get all worked up just because the world is doing what the world does.</p>

<p>The world’s going to be illogical, irrational, and sometimes incapable of civil discourse. We expect that of people in darkness. Because they can’t see clearly, they bump into things. Don’t be confused or surprised when the world is being the world. Expect it.</p>

<p>Keep in mind that the world knows nothing about the peace of God that passes all understanding. They don’t know about trusting a sovereign Lord. When the world acts like the world, remember you’re not dealing with light. You’re dealing with darkness. When darkness is dark, stay focused on your task. It’s your job to be the light.</p>

<p>Whether it’s forgoing worldly approval, standing firm in your convictions, or remaining calm in all circumstances, be prepared to render to God that which is God’s. Then, when the test truly comes, when the powers of darkness press in on you from the structures of this world, you will continue to do God’s work God’s way.</p>

<p>Thankfully, you don’t have to do this alone. God has given us a community so we can work together on these things and find support. We learn to “render to God” together.</p>
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title: The Primal Heresy
topic: Philosophy
author: Greg Koukl
date: 03/01/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/the-primal-heresy
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Hugh Hewitt begins <em>In, But Not Of</em>—his wonderful handbook for cultivating one’s professional life as a force for Christ—with these words:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>The effective and mass communication of the gospel depends upon the freedom to proclaim it. Though it is possible to proclaim the gospel in the face of persecution, the unfettered freedom to do so is much, much to be preferred.<a href="#_edn1" name="_ednref1">[1]</a></p>
</blockquote>

<p>I learned this painful lesson firsthand in my own travels in 1976 behind what was then called the “Iron Curtain.” I was encouraging Christians in five communist countries who were being crushed under the hammer of Soviet-style Marxism.<a href="#_edn2" name="_ednref2">[2]</a></p>

<p>The official newspaper of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union at that time was called <em>Pravda</em>. The word means “truth.” Truth, though, was not a valued commodity under Soviet totalitarianism. “Truth” was just a wax-nosed propaganda tool used to serve a different end—power. Power, not truth, was the ultimate instrument of Soviet influence.</p>

<p>Russian history is testimony to a basic fact. Human lives will be ruled by one of two fundamental forces: either truth or power. Humanity will be governed, on the one hand, by the physical facts of God’s world and the moral facts of his character, or, on the other, by forces that oppose one or—at the present time—both moral and physical facts.</p>

<p>For truth to guide, one must have liberty—liberty to <em>pursue</em> truth, liberty to <em>discover</em> truth, and liberty to <em>live by</em> truth. Without such freedom, brute force will always be the master, and freedom to choose to live by truth will be the casualty. Humans will then be compelled to live by lies.</p>

<p>For most of history, the people of the world have lived in slavery, in unwilling subjection to forces greater than they. The American experiment charted a different course. It was, in Lincoln’s words, “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” Truth, not raw power, was to rule.</p>

<p>Liberty is why the first freedoms of the First Amendment were so dear to the founders and why America’s first founders—Puritans—risked life and limb to flee tyranny and establish a new order. It was founded on the freedom to pursue authentic truth—God’s truth—and be faithful to it.</p>

<p>This kind of freedom was the heartbeat of the American experiment. That great enterprise, though, is faltering—even failing, some think. We stumble not because of widespread racism and other forms of alleged social oppression. Rather, something much deeper staggers us, a lie that fuels genuine racism but also animates false accusations of oppression.</p>

<p>As many have said before, ideas have consequences. False ideas, though—lies about the world—cut deep gashes. One lie has been with us from the beginning, from the genesis of humanity. It’s as ancient as mankind itself and has cut the deepest gash in the human soul. It is the first lie. It is the primal heresy.</p>

<h2>The First Lie</h2>

<p>In the beginning, humans knew no lies, of course. Their realm was ruled by the power of goodness. The truth of God’s world prevailed. Power and truth were united, one.</p>

<p>It did not stay that way for long, though. A crafty deceiver intruded. When the goodness of the Author of truth was challenged, a counterfeit truth took stage.</p>

<p>“Has God said?” the Deceiver challenged. “He’s lying. He’s holding out on you. He is not good. What do <em>you</em> want? What does <em>your</em> heart tell you?”</p>

<p>“The fruit seems good to eat. It delights my eyes. It will make me wise. I want it.” <a href="#_edn3" name="_ednref3">[3]</a></p>

<p>“Then take it. Be free of him. Truth is not out there. Truth is within. Make your own rules. Follow your own heart. Be true to your own <em>self</em>.”</p>

<p>This exchange is an interpretive paraphrase, of course, of Genesis 3:1–6, but it reflects the crux of the matter. At the Fall, an alternative “truth” prevailed, the truth within, “my truth.” The revolt in the Garden was a rejection of the <em>external</em> source of truth in exchange for an <em>internal</em> authority. Self-rule replaced God’s rule. Mankind embraced itself.</p>

<p>This outside/inside distinction—God’s truth vs. individual truth—may sound familiar. It is the root of relativism, the primal heresy. And it did not produce the promised freedom. Instead, it brought thorns and thistles, bondage and captivity, and it continues to do so today.</p>

<p>The ancient Hebrew prophet said if you sow to the wind, you will reap the whirlwind.<a href="#_edn4" name="_ednref4">[4]</a> The proverb applies here. The option that promised absolute freedom brought absolute slavery. We are not the masters of ourselves. We never were. Instead, our selves—the flesh—and the Deceiver now master us. And it has been so ever since.</p>

<p>As I said earlier, human lives are ruled by one of two fundamental forces: either truth or power. This is when that clash began.</p>

<p>Of course, if there is no God, there is nothing left but self and power. We are the landlords, not the tenants.<a href="#_edn5" name="_ednref5">[5]</a> No external moral order rules the day. No transcendent meaning drives human ambition. That is the appeal of atheism. But that is not the truth. That is part of the lie.</p>

<p>Relativism is the heartbeat of our age. Every generation has fallen prey to it, but this generation celebrates it, idolizes it. The concept, though, is a bit hard to nail down. Here is a brief tutorial.</p>

<h2>Inside or Outside?</h2>

<p>Relativism is a take on the meaning of the word “truth.” The word is used to communicate a particular understanding of what a person means when she says a belief, or a statement, or a point of view of hers is true.</p>

<p>When I tutor students on the meaning of truth, I start with a statement then ask two questions. First, I make a dramatic display of placing a pen on the podium, then I say, “The pen is on the podium.” Next, I ask if the assertion is true. When the students nod, I ask the critical question: “What <em>makes</em> the statement true?”</p>

<p>Hands shoot up. “Because I see it there,” one student says. But if you didn’t see it, I ask, wouldn’t it still be true that the pen is on the podium? Seeing might help you <em>know</em> the statement is true, but it isn’t what <em>makes</em> it true.</p>

<p>“Because I believe it,” offers another. If you stopped believing, I challenge, would the pen disappear? No. And would believing really hard make a pen materialize atop an empty podium? Probably not.</p>

<p>“The thing that makes the statement ‘The pen is on the podium’ a <em>true</em> statement,” I tell them, “is a pen and a podium, and the former resting on the latter. It doesn’t matter if anyone <em>sees</em> it. It doesn’t matter if anyone <em>believes</em> it. It doesn’t matter what anyone <em>thinks</em> at all.”</p>

<p>Note, the truth of the statement “The pen is on the podium” is completely independent of any subject’s thoughts—a “subject” here being any person or any group of people. It is, in other words, completely <em>mind independent</em>.</p>

<p>Notice, by the way, that the students’ first two responses tie the notion of truth to what is happening on the <em>inside</em> of the student—a personal belief or an individual sensation of seeing—and not on anything that’s happening <em>outside</em> the student.</p>

<p>This inside/outside distinction is the key to understanding any kind of relativism.</p>

<p>The classroom exercise is a lesson on the meaning of <em>objective</em> truth. If the “truth maker,” the condition that makes a statement true, is something about the <em>object</em> itself—something outside us, so to speak, unrelated to our own thoughts, desires, feelings, or beliefs—then the truth is an <em>objective</em> truth. The statement accurately fits some feature of the world “out there,” regardless of anyone’s opinion about it.</p>

<p>Aristotle described it this way. If you say that it is and it is, or you say that it isn’t and it isn’t, that’s true. If you say that it isn’t and it is, or you say that it is and it isn’t, that’s false.<a href="#_edn6" name="_ednref6">[6]</a></p>

<p>Aristotle’s characterization is the common-sense, garden-variety understanding of the meaning of truth. When my philosopher friend Frank Beckwith was asked what the definition of truth was, he quipped, “Do you want the true definition or the false one?” You get the point.</p>

<p>By contrast, think of my daughter Eva, when she was five years old, amusing herself with a book beyond her reading ability. As she recited the book’s tale, out tumbled the dramatic particulars. She turned each page at proper intervals, yet her yarn bore no resemblance to anything on the page since she wasn’t actually reading. The words were purely a product of her own imagination. The story was in her head, not in the book.</p>

<p>Put another way, the “truth” spoken was in the subject (Eva), not in the object (<em>Fancy Nancy</em>, in this case). It was based on something on the inside, not on something on the outside. It was mind <em>dependent</em> (a five-year-old mind here), not mind independent. Therefore, it was a <em>subjective</em>, or relative, truth.</p>

<p>Here is another way of seeing it. If the truth you have in mind can change simply by changing your mind, then that “truth” is only in your mind. It’s not in the world. It’s on the inside, not the outside. That’s relativism. <a href="#_edn7" name="_ednref7">[7]</a></p>

<p>In <em>The Story of Reality</em>, I pointed out the folly of this approach, the foolishness of letting beliefs on the inside define truth on the outside:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Some beliefs are true. Others are not. The difference matters. If a [belief] is not accurate to reality, it’s not any kind of truth at all, so it can never be <em>my</em> truth or <em>your</em> truth, even though we may believe it. It can only be our delusion, or our mistake, or our error, or whatever else you may want to call it. But it could never be our “truth.” I hope that’s clear.<a href="#_edn8" name="_ednref8">[8]</a></p>
</blockquote>

<p>In the real world, simply believing something cannot make it true. It cannot change a single thing about the way the world actually is. If you don’t believe in gravity, for example, you will not float away.</p>

<h2>Real Bad or Feel Bad?</h2>

<p>This inside/outside distinction applies in exactly the same way to morality. One might say it’s the difference between <em>real</em> bad and merely <em>feel</em> bad.</p>

<p>Moral objectivism is the view that moral claims are like the statement “The pen is on the podium.” Philosophers call this “moral realism” because moral qualities, though not physical, are still just as real as the pen. The truth maker is an objective fact, not a subjective belief.</p>

<p>So, for example, when an objectivist says, “Rape is wrong,” he means to be describing rape itself, not merely his own feeling, opinion, point of view, or preference about rape.<a href="#_edn9" name="_ednref9">[9]</a> In objectivism, something about the <em>object</em> (an action, in this case) makes the moral statement true. If rape actually <em>is</em> wrong, it’s because of something about rape, not something about a person, or his culture, or his genetic conditioning.<a href="#_edn10" name="_ednref10">[10]</a> Objective moral truth, like all genuine truth, is always mind <em>independent</em>.</p>

<p>By contrast, moral relativism is like little Eva’s story. The “facts” are only in one’s mind, not in the world. No act is bad <em>in itself</em>. The words “evil,” “wicked,” or “wrong” (or “good,” “virtuous,” or “noble,” for that matter), never actually describe behavior or circumstances on the outside. Rather, they describe a judgment inside the mind of a subject who has either expressed a preference or felt an emotion.</p>

<p>In relativism, the <em>subject</em>—a person’s beliefs, tastes, or preferences—is the “truth maker.”<a href="#_edn11" name="_ednref11">[11]</a> The beliefs are true <em>for</em> the person who holds them even though they might not be true <em>for </em>others who have different beliefs. That’s because in relativism, moral truth is mind <em>dependent</em>. In a relativistic world, then, no belief of any kind—moral or otherwise—can actually be false since a mere belief (“my truth”) is true by definition.</p>

<p>So, objectivism is the view that morality is like gravity; relativism is the view that morality is like Monopoly. The facts of physics are features of the world, not a matter of personal whim, individual taste, or cultural convention. Monopoly, on the other hand, is man-made. The rules are made by people and can be changed by people.</p>

<p>With an objective statement, <em>facts</em> make a claim true. In a subjective claim, the subject’s <em>beliefs</em> or <em>feelings</em> make the claim true. Rape is only wrong, for example, if a person simply believes it so, not because of anything questionable about rape itself.</p>

<p>It is one thing for an individual to be confused about truth. It is quite another when an entire emerging culture is confused, abetted by government policy that frequently supports the madness.</p>

<p>If you do not understand how thoroughly the primal heresy permeates the emerging culture, you will not understand the meteoric rise of antipathy to Christianity characteristic of this new generation.</p>

<h2>The Triumph of the Self</h2>

<p>The cultural shift towards the self that I warn of actually began over a century ago but shifted into high gear in the ’60s. I know; I was there. We chanted slogans like “Do your own thing,” “Different strokes for different folks,” “Live for today,” “If it feels good, do it.” However, these were not metaphysical statements—statements of ultimate meaning or personal identity. They were mere refusals to be constrained by current ethical conventions.</p>

<p>For the past 50 years, remnants of the Christian worldview provided a measure of restraint to that impulse of self-directed hedonistic license. Now, though, the wound goes much deeper.</p>

<p>Today, a single slogan sums it up: “You do you.” Two personal pronouns and a verb. Nothing else. The mantra is completely self-reflexive: me about me. That’s the ruling dogma. In <em>The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self</em>, Carl Trueman describes this “expressive individualism” as the idea that “each of us finds our meaning by giving expression to our own feelings and desires.”<a href="#_edn12" name="_ednref12">[12]</a></p>

<p>Lest Trueman’s characterization be mistaken for a noble commitment to personal authenticity, make note of his phrase “finds our <em>meaning</em>.” Rev. Martin Luther King stood true to himself against the torrent because his convictions were rooted in something outside himself—God’s truth. Now “authenticity” is nothing more than naked desire, and desire’s unrestrained expression is central to one’s identity. It is what&nbsp;Rod Dreher, author of <em>Live Not by Lies</em>, calls “the liberation of individual desire.” Listen carefully:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>The essence of modernity is to deny that there are any transcendent stories, structures, habits, or beliefs to which individuals must submit and that should bind our conduct. To be modern is to be free to choose. <em>What</em> is chosen does not matter; the meaning is in the choice itself. There is no sacred order, no other world, no fixed virtues and permanent truths. There is only here and now and the eternal flame of human desire. <em>Volo ergo sum</em>—I want, therefore I am.<a href="#_edn13" name="_ednref13">[13]</a></p>
</blockquote>

<p>The slogan on a Ninja Warrior T-shirt reads, “Be your own hero.” Think about that. Heroes are others we look up to and emulate because of some superior virtue. Being our own hero means the self is already the high-water mark. Thus, hero worship is reduced to self-worship.</p>

<p>Note how deeply the primal heresy has taken hold. A pandemic of narcissism besieges us and is championed as central to individual meaning and personal identity. Self-love and unrestrained pursuit of self-interest are no longer vices; they are virtues. Indeed, they are now considered inviolable human rights.</p>

<p>It’s not that new trends encourage immoral conduct that people a generation ago would not have countenanced. Rather, those under the spell of this metaphysical narcissism seem unable to think in objective moral categories at all. There simply is no sacred order. There is only <em>amour propre</em>—the love of self.</p>

<p>Consider, for a moment, how gender is now viewed. “Gender” no longer refers to anything about our bodies on the <em>outside</em>; it is, rather, completely a matter of <em>internal</em> preference and personal self-determination. That’s why the obstetrician’s announcement “It’s a girl!“ is now considered an act of child abuse by many. The doctor is arbitrarily “assigning” gender without the baby’s consent.</p>

<p>Notice this stunner from <em>The</em><em> New England Journal of Medicine</em>. They recently published a piece titled “Failed Assignments: Rethinking Sex Designations on Birth Certificates” arguing that sex designations (read “assignments”) on birth certificates be removed since they “offer no clinical utility, and they can be harmful for intersex and transgender people.”<a href="#_edn14" name="_ednref14">[14]</a></p>

<p>Harmful? Really? True gender dysphoria is a tragic burden to bear, and for those so afflicted, suicide rates skyrocket. Harm results when we encourage this delusion. But that treats the outside world, not the inside, as the locus of truth, a view anathema to the emerging culture.</p>

<p>Gender confusion is one category of evidence of the primal heresy’s increasing stranglehold on our culture, but other examples abound. The church is not exempt from its influence, either.</p>

<p>My 13-year-old is no relativist—far from it. Yet I frequently hear her protest&nbsp;“Don’t judge me!” in conversation without thinking of its significance. It’s a slogan of her generation that’s become a completely reflexive part of their cultural vocabulary.</p>

<h2>Live Not by Lies</h2>

<p>We have been talking about how one of two forces rule humankind, either truth or power. If truth is silenced, especially moral truth, power fills the vacuum.</p>

<p>Aristotle said that all law rests on the necessary foundation of morality. When moral truth is relative, the foundation is gone, and nothing remains but brute force. When truth ceases to provide a protective rampart, totalitarianism is not far behind. Lies, of course, are subversions of truth, and when we live by them, liberty is soon lost.</p>

<p>We have also learned that the primal heresy—relativism, the ultimate negation of genuine truth—is on rapid and aggressive ascendancy in our midst. Like Mordor’s creeping cloud, a blanket of darkness looms over this generation. The promise of self-rule is an empty one, of course. The self can only rule when the powers that be allow it. Eventually the relativists become victims of their own devices, just like in the Garden.</p>

<p>For Christians, though, this is not the time to circle the wagons. Instead, we stand. Like those who have come before us—Jesus, Paul, Polycarp, Luther, Bonhoeffer, King—we make our case in the public square, then we stand. Hewitt, again:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>The reality of Western-style religious liberty is not imperial domination or religious absolutism; it is the reality of freedom to hear and freedom to choose. Christians in the third millennium should not ask for more than these freedoms or desire more…. <em>But they must demand the right to speak their piece in peace and to worship as they see fit</em>.<a href="#_edn15" name="_ednref15">[15]</a>&nbsp;[Emphasis added.]</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Overcoming this cultural threat will not happen quickly. It has been brewing for many decades, and I do not expect to see it remedied in my lifetime. We do not lean on the bent reed of capricious popular opinion or quick-fix political schemes, though proper public policy plays a legitimate role in the process.</p>

<p>Rather, we reason, we cajole, we warn, and sometimes we persuade, the belt of truth being the very first weapon in our spiritual arsenal (Eph. 6:14). When we have done everything, we stand. We stand firmly for what we know to be true, even in the face of hostile opposition, even when we cannot persuade otherwise.</p>

<p>Often, in standing, we suffer. That is the way of the cross. It is what Jesus promised.<a href="#_edn16" name="_ednref16">[16]</a> It is the world’s tribulation Jesus warned of. Be at peace, though. Take courage. We have his promise: He has overcome the world. In the final reckoning, that is enough.</p>

<p>The leviathan state is not the only agent of forced servitude, however. In Western culture, extra-government powers currently drive the trend. In the next issue of <em>Solid Ground</em>, I will offer a more detailed portrait of that process.</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%">
<p><a href="#_ednref1" name="_edn1">[1]</a> Hugh Hewitt, <em>In, But Not Of</em> (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2003), vii.</p>

<p><a href="#_ednref2" name="_edn2">[2]</a> My experiences there were the subject of “Iron Curtain Diary” in the previous <em>Solid Ground</em>, Jan-Feb 2021, available at str.org.</p>

<p><a href="#_ednref3" name="_edn3">[3]</a> “When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate” (Gen. 3:6).</p>

<p><a href="#_ednref4" name="_edn4">[4]</a> Hosea 8:7.</p>

<p><a href="#_ednref5" name="_edn5">[5]</a> C.S. Lewis authored this metaphor.</p>

<p><a href="#_ednref6" name="_edn6">[6]</a> Philosophers call this the “correspondence view” of truth.</p>

<p><a href="#_ednref7" name="_edn7">[7]</a> I owe this insight to my dear friend J. Warner Wallace.</p>

<p><a href="#_ednref8" name="_edn8">[8]</a> Gregory Koukl, <em>The Story of Reality</em> (Grand Rapids MI: Zondervan, 2017), 32.</p>

<p><a href="#_ednref9" name="_edn9">[9]</a> He may have beliefs, feelings, etc., about rape, but that’s not what he’s describing.</p>

<p><a href="#_ednref10" name="_edn10">[10]</a> According to Darwinism, our beliefs about morality are the result of the blind “design” of natural selection. Since that kind of morality is always on the inside and tells us nothing about the outside world, Darwinian morality is always relativistic.</p>

<p><a href="#_ednref11" name="_edn11">[11]</a> Moral relativism, then, is a kind of <em>subjectivism</em> since judgments of right and wrong are completely up to the <em>subject</em>—the individual person or group—to decide.</p>

<p><a href="#_ednref12" name="_edn12">[12]</a> Carl Trueman, <em>The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self</em> (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020), 46.</p>

<p><a href="#_ednref13" name="_edn13">[13]</a> Rod Dreher, <em>Live Not by Lies</em> (New York City: Sentinel, 2020), 115–116.</p>

<p><a href="#_ednref14" name="_edn14">[14]</a> <em>The New England Journal of Medicine</em>, December 17, 2020, https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2025974.</p>

<p><a href="#_ednref15" name="_edn15">[15]</a> Hewitt, ix.</p>

<p><a href="#_ednref16" name="_edn16">[16]</a> See Matt. 10:16–22.</p>
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title: Hell: A Solution, Not a Problem
topic: Theology
author: Tim Barnett
date: 02/25/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/hell-a-solution-not-a-problem
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Answering challenges can feel like Whac-A-Mole. Whac-A-Mole is an arcade game where players use a mallet to hit little moles that pop up at random and then disappear back into their holes. What makes Whac-A-Mole so difficult is that you can only hit one mole at a time.</p>

<p>Apologetic conversations can feel like that sometimes. A particular issue is raised, we respond to the particular issue, only to have <em>another</em> particular issue pop up.</p>

<p>Let me suggest a better approach. Would Whac-A-Mole be easier if the mallet could hit more than one mole at a time? Of course it would! This is the advantage of answering challenges from a big picture, worldview perspective.</p>

<p>When it comes to Hell, there are some debated details. Is the fire literal or metaphorical? Is it torture or torment? Is the punishment physical, or psychological, or both? Is the punishment everlasting or annihilation? We become so focused on debating the details that we lose sight of the big picture.</p>

<p>One strategy I’ve found helpful in talking to unbelievers about Hell is to focus on its significant worldview implications. Namely, I believe Hell isn’t the problem people think it is. In fact, it’s a solution to two problems.</p>

<p><strong><em>First, Hell helps answer the philosophical problem of evil.</em> </strong></p>

<p>The problem of evil is <em>not</em> the problem for Christianity people think it is. It’s a problem for atheism, but not for us. Why? Because our entire story is about the problem of evil. It starts in the third chapter and doesn’t get solved until 66 books later. <em>But it does get solved.</em></p>

<p>Christianity has a lot to say in response to evil. We won’t get into all of that here. But one part of our larger response is that, in the end, evil <em>is</em> defeated. All wrongs <em>will</em> <em>be</em> made right. There <em>will be</em> a day of reckoning.</p>

<p>An eighteenth-century hymn sums it up:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>This is my Father’s world:<br>
O let me ne’er forget<br>
<em>That though the wrong seems oft so strong,</em><br>
God is the Ruler yet.<br>
This is my Father’s world:<br>
<em>The battle is not done:</em><br>
<em>Jesus who died shall be satisfied,</em><br>
<em>And earth and Heav’n be one.</em></p>
</blockquote>

<p>Christians shouldn’t be surprised by evil. It’s part of our Story. <em>And our Story isn’t over yet.</em> There is a day coming when all evil and suffering will finally be defeated.</p>

<p>So, first, Hell helps answer a <em>philosophical</em> problem—the problem of evil.</p>

<p><strong><em>Second, Hell satisfies our existential longing for justice. </em></strong></p>

<p>Many people have no problem with a God <em>who forgives</em>. The problem is a God <em>who punishes.</em> I think this might be a secular Western phenomenon, though. Most of us in the Western world live protected lives. We have “rights.” And when those rights are violated, we look to the government for justice. When injustice takes place, we go to the police, or lawyers, or government officials to make things right.</p>

<p>It’s easy for us to scoff at <em>divine</em> justice when we’re used to counting on <em>human</em> justice. But in places where there is no human justice, they don’t scoff at divine justice; <em>they cry out for it. </em></p>

<p>Yale theologian Miroslav Volf—who saw thousands killed and millions displaced in his homeland of Yugoslavia—has us imagine delivering a lecture in a war zone on how God’s retribution is incompatible with His love. He says,</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Among your listeners are people whose cities and villages have been first plundered, then burned and leveled to the ground, whose daughters and sisters have been raped, whose fathers and brothers have had their throats slit….</p>

<p>[I]f God were not angry at injustice and deception and did not make the final end to violence, God would not be worthy of our worship.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>In his book <em>Free of Charge,</em> Volf says,</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Though I used to complain about the indecency of the idea of God’s wrath, I came to think that I would have to rebel against a God who <em>wasn’t</em> wrathful at the sight of the world’s evil. God isn’t wrathful in spite of being love. God is wrathful <em>because</em> God is love. [Emphasis in original]</p>
</blockquote>

<p>There is no incompatibility between love and final justice. As Volf points out, a god who is <em>indifferent</em> towards injustice would not be good. In fact, it is precisely because God is good that he punishes the guilty. The goodness of God <em>requires</em> final judgment. It is a manifestation of the perfect justice of God.</p>

<p>Even within the current cultural moment, we long for justice. This is why people say, “No justice; no peace.” This is the mantra of many who are marching in the streets in response to what they see as injustice. Our hearts cry out for <em>perfect justice, </em>but that’s something no earthly justice system will ever satisfy<em>.</em> Only God can provide that.</p>

<p>We cry out, “No Justice; no peace.” But if there is no God, there can be no final justice. The truth is, “No final judgment; no ultimate justice.”</p>

<p>With this argument, I’m appealing to what Francis Schaeffer called the “mannishness of man.” In the book <em>Tactics</em>, Greg Koukl says, “Because we all live in God’s world and are all made in God’s image, there are things all people know that are embedded deep within their hearts—profound things about our world and about ourselves—even though we deny them or worldviews disqualify them.”</p>

<p>There is something within us that demands that those responsible for injustice stand before a judge and pay for their crimes. But here’s the rub. We are <em>all</em> responsible for injustice. Therefore, we will <em>all</em> stand before Jesus, and we will <em>all</em> give an account for the wrongs we’ve done. The books will be opened containing a complete list of every crime we’ve ever committed. God misses nothing.</p>

<p>“Will that be fire? Will that be forever?” That’s not our concern right now. Whatever the judgment looks like, it’s going to be worse than your worst nightmare, and you do not want to be there. That is the bad news.</p>

<p>Here is the good news. There is <em>another</em> book, the Book of Life. In <em>The Story of Reality</em>, Greg Koukl says, “It also contains a record, the names of those who, though guilty, have received mercy, at their request: ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner.’ All those who have accepted their pardon in Christ will be absolved.”</p>

<p>So, in the final judgment, there are two options. Either Jesus pays, or you pay. Perfect mercy or perfect justice.</p>

<p>In the final analysis, Hell is a solution, not a problem. It helps make sense of something <em>in the world</em> and something <em>in our hearts</em>. First, it helps answer the problem of evil in our world. Second, it satisfies the longing for justice in our hearts by explaining how that longing will be satisfied.</p>
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title: We Are Called to a Life of Weakness
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 03/09/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/we-are-called-to-a-life-of-weakness
content:
            <div> 
		<p>In his little book <em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Weakness-Way-Trade-Paperback-Strength/dp/1433563835/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=1615259424&amp;sr=8-1">Weakness Is the Way</a></em>, J.I. Packer, someone who grappled with feeling weak throughout his life, focuses on passages in 2 Corinthians, a book where Paul puts his weakness on full display for his readers and concludes, “[Jesus] has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness’…. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:9–10).</p>

<p>As Packer explains, this isn’t just true for Paul; it’s the way of life for the Christian: “For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh” (2 Cor. 4:11). Our weakness changes us, makes us more like him; and our dependence on him brings him glory. This is the way for us.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>We may, I think, take it as certain that Paul was not by nature or upbringing weakness-conscious in the way that he came to be after putting himself in Christ’s hands on the Damascus road and setting out at Christ’s command on his apostolic travels. And we should recognize that the fierce and somewhat disabling pain with which Christ in due course required him to live, and which he clearly accepted as a weakness that would be with him to his dying day, had in view less the enriching of his ministry than the furthering of his sanctification. The clues are there: Paul refers to increase of humility in face of privileged revelations (12:7), deepened dependence on Christ in face of Satanic discouragements and distractions (vv. 7–9), and a robust readiness to welcome whatever other forms of suffering might come his way in the future (v. 10). <strong>He demonstrates a sustained recognition that feeling weak in oneself is par for the course in the Christian life and therefore something one may properly boast about and be content with</strong> (vv. 6, 9–10). (“Boast” here means, not parade or be proud of in a self-centered way, but highlight when appropriate as a significant, God-given part of one’s life.)</p>

<p>In this, Paul models the discipleship, spiritual maturity, and growth in grace that all believers are called to pursue. [Emphasis added.]</p>
</blockquote>

<p>And now he comes to the point that smashes through the mold of expectations our culture constantly tries to squeeze us into:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>When the world tells us, as it does, that everyone has a right to a life that is easy, comfortable, and relatively pain-free, a life that enables us to discover, display, and deploy all the strengths that are latent within us, the world twists the truth right out of shape. That was not the quality of life to which Christ’s calling led him, nor was it Paul’s calling, nor is it what we are called to in the twenty-first century. For all Christians, the likelihood is rather that as our discipleship continues, God will make us increasingly weakness-conscious and pain-aware, so that we may learn with Paul that when we are conscious of being weak, then—and only then—may we become truly strong in the Lord.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Do not be surprised when your weakness increases. And don’t be tempted to conclude God has left you when you experience it. As Packer notes, “Paul went unhealed, though not abandoned.” In fact, he says, the <em>opposite</em> of abandonment was true: Paul’s weakness was the result of God’s deliberate, loving, fatherly work in his life for a purpose.</p>
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title: Live According to a Plumb Line, Not a Pendulum
topic: Christian Living
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 03/02/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/live-according-to-a-plumb-line-not-a-pendulum
content:
            <div> 
		<p>You may have heard the stories. Sadly, it’s a pattern many Christians follow. A believer grows up with a misconception about the Christian worldview. One day, he discovers the truth and realizes he was mistaken. He becomes disillusioned with his faith and reacts by adopting a completely opposite—but also unbiblical—position. We often say the pendulum swung the other way. He went from one extreme to the next. Both positions, however, are wrong.</p>

<p>Examples abound. A girl who was raised in a “fundamentalist Christian home” was told Muslims are the enemy and dangerous people. When she went to high school, she met Saeed, a friendly Muslim in her class. Saeed was kind, chivalrous, and respectful of her Christian faith. All of her preconceived notions were destroyed. Saeed was nothing like the way her parents had characterized Muslims. Eventually, she began dating him, they fell in love, and she converted to Islam. The pendulum swung the other way.</p>

<p>In another example, a family was attending a conservative church in the Bible Belt. “Homosexuality is sin” was drummed into their heads. It was as if the church disproportionately singled out the sin of homosexuality as one of the most grievous sins. When the son reached high school age, he told his parents he was gay. Disillusioned, the parents looked for answers by scouring the internet and asking their friends for support. They came across Matthew Vines’s book, <em>God and the Gay Christian</em>, a book that supports the idea that one can be gay (e.g., have a same-sex lover, marry someone of the same sex, etc.) <em>and </em>be a faithful Christian. The parents were relieved to discover this “option” and fully embraced pro-gay theology. The pendulum swung the other way.</p>

<p>I’ve also heard multiple testimonies of progressive Christians explaining how they rejected the legalistic Christian “fundamentalism” of their youth and now hold more “reasonable” positions like being pro-choice, pro-gay, and claiming Jesus was a socialist. The pendulum swung the other way.</p>

<p>There’s a similar pattern repeating itself. A Christian becomes aware of an error in their faith but then overcorrects by adopting a view on the other end of the spectrum. The pendulum swings to a position that’s opposite of their starting point but still wrong in a different way.</p>

<p>Scripture offers a better and more accurate approach to gauge our spiritual life and discover what our position should be on any matter: a plumb line. A plumb line is a builder’s tool. It consists of a heavy, pointed weight attached to a string. Gravity makes the string hang perfectly straight (or plumb), giving a builder a vertical line by which to build a structure.</p>

<p>Scripture uses a plumb line as a metaphor for spiritual truth by which we can align our lives. For example, God tells Isaiah, “I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plumb line” (Isaiah 28:17). God also sends the prophet Amos to warn Israel of impending judgment because of their disobedience:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>The Lord was standing by a vertical wall with a plumb line in His hand. The Lord said to me, “What do you see, Amos?”&nbsp;And I said, “A plumb line.”&nbsp;Then the Lord said, “Behold I am about to put a plumb line in the midst of My people Israel. I will spare them no longer.” (Amos 7:7–8)</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The plumb line makes it clear to God’s people how far they’ve strayed from his perfect will.</p>

<p>The mistake is to follow the swing of a pendulum rather than adjust your position according to a plumb line. The problem with swinging the pendulum the other way is that it mistakenly presumes that the opposite position of an incorrect view is always correct. It can be, but that isn’t always the case. When you realize you’re in error, the biblical approach is to look at Scripture like a plumb line and realign your view according to that unchanging standard.</p>

<p>Had the people in my previous examples heeded this advice, they’d still be faithful Christians. The girl wouldn’t have become a Muslim, but she would recognize that that no person—even a Muslim—is your enemy; they’re a valuable image-bearer of God who needs a pardon. Rather than adopting pro-gay theology, the parents would have simply embraced Jesus’ sexual ethic while unconditionally loving their son. The progressive Christians would have jettisoned their theological error and adopted a more biblical view.</p>

<p>The proper corrective in these cases is to align your views to the plumb line of Scripture. That’s why God has given it to us. It’s for our good and for the health the church.</p>
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title: People Are More Than Labels
topic: Tactics and Tools
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 02/23/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/people-are-more-than-labels
content:
            <div> 
		<p>My family recently finished watching the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divergent_trilogy" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><em>Divergent</em> trilogy</a>. The dystopian narrative imagines a future where people in society are split up into factions based on values and aptitude. One faction is brave, another is honest, another is intelligent, etc. Of course, not every member of the society fits neatly into one of these categories. Some people have characteristics that fit multiple factions. Part of the plot includes a fight to overturn the faction system.</p>

<p>Naturally, our family got into a discussion about how our modern society has its own faction system with labels for different groups: Democrat, Republican, libertarian, conservative, liberal, pro-life, pro-choice, Christian, Muslim, gay, artist, athlete, etc. Although we don’t live in exactly the same dystopian world of the <em>Divergent </em>series, one important point that carries over from the movie is that people don’t always fit neatly into categories. It’s easy to misunderstand who a person is and/or what they believe if you don’t take the time to get to know them. People and their views are almost always more nuanced than what we might conclude based on a label.</p>

<p>For example (and I’ve spoken with several people like this), imagine a girl who identifies herself as “pro-choice.” A typical pro-life Christian might assume this person is a feminist who believes abortion should be legal for any reason throughout all nine months of pregnancy. It’s possible this is her view, but being pro-choice could mean many different things. Though she might agree with the general idea of a woman’s “right to choose,” she could believe that abortion is wrong as a method of birth control, that abortion is wrong after the first trimester, and that abortion is wrong in a case where the unborn has Down syndrome. In other words, she could identify as “pro-choice” but be morally opposed to the vast majority of abortions. That’s why it would be a mistake to draw a conclusion about her views based merely on her self-designation of “pro-choice.”</p>

<p>The same is true with the label “Christian.” When I meet a stranger and they tell me they’re a Christian, I honestly don’t have any idea what they actually believe. There’s a tremendous variety of beliefs that can fall under that label. That’s also true of “Muslim,” “gay,” “conservative,” and a whole host of other labels. We shouldn’t settle for our preconceived notions of who people are. It often leads to misunderstanding, misrepresentation, and failed relationships.</p>

<p>The solution is to follow two simple steps. First, resist the urge to jump to conclusions about people. Realize that people hold far more nuanced views than what their labels suggest. Don’t assume you understand a person because he’s identified himself in some way. It’s not that you can’t conclude <em>anything</em> about a person, but it often means that you can learn <em>a lot more</em> about them.</p>

<p>Second, <a href="https://youtu.be/ToAC7YSiNYI" rel="noopener" target="_blank">take the time to learn and understand people</a>. As we’ve often <a href="/w/the-columbo-tactic" rel="noopener" target="_blank">talked</a> about here at Stand to Reason, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbo_(character)" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Lieutenant Columbo</a> is your friend. The “<a href="/w/take-a-tip-from-lt.-columbo-" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Columbo Tactic</a>” is about the art of asking questions in a gracious way. The more you learn about another person, the better you’ll understand them, and you’ll be less likely to misrepresent them. Plus, taking the time to learn about them also helps you respond in a more relevant way. Francis Schaeffer <a href="https://www.covenantseminary.edu/francis-schaeffer-the-man-and-his-message/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">said</a>, “If I have only an hour with someone, I will spend the first 55 minutes asking questions and finding out what is troubling their heart and mind, and then in the last 5 minutes I will share something of the truth.” By taking the time to learn about their values and their life, you’ll be better equipped to know what to say when (and if) you decide to say something.</p>

<p>When we settle for our understanding of others based on a mere label, we limit our capacity to understand one another and short circuit healthy relationships. That’s one reason why the world in <em>Divergent </em>was better off once they eliminated factions. People could be understood for the complicated beings they truly were. We can reap the same benefit in our world if we no longer settle for seeing people as a mere label.</p>
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title: Persecution, Pain, Perseverance, and Love in Jeremiah
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 03/16/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/persecution-pain-perseverance-and-love-in-jeremiah
content:
            <div> 
		<p>When Jeremiah is called by God to prophesy to Judah about their coming judgment, he says, “Alas, Lord God!” He was worried merely about not knowing how to speak, but his “Alas!” foreshadowed the much greater difficulties ahead of him. He would soon be hated, maligned, and threatened with death. And he would do all of this alone, having been commanded by God not to marry or have children as a prophetic image of God’s coming destruction of the sons and daughters of the people of Judah (Jer. 16:1–4).</p>

<p>As he watches the nation he loves face terrible judgment for the evil they have done (and continue to do) as a result of their rejection of God, his grief is unimaginable. It pours off the pages of his writing, and the rawness of it is almost too much to bear.</p>

<p>From the Old Testament prophets like Jeremiah, we learn something crucial: Speaking the truth is not always fun. In fact, it’s often the opposite of fun, especially when it’s done out of love and a desire to warn and save…and the very people you love and are trying to warn and save hate you for it. From the words of Jeremiah:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>I have become a laughingstock all day long;<br>
Everyone mocks me.<br>
For each time I speak, I cry aloud;<br>
I proclaim violence and destruction,<br>
Because for me the word of the Lord has resulted<br>
In reproach and derision all day long.<br>
But if I say, “I will not remember Him<br>
Or speak anymore in His name,”<br>
Then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire<br>
Shut up in my bones;<br>
And I am weary of holding it in.<br>
And I cannot endure it.<br>
For I have heard the whispering of many,<br>
“Terror on every side!<br>
Denounce him; yes, let us denounce him!”<br>
All my trusted friends,<br>
Watching for my fall, say:<br>
“Perhaps he will be deceived, so that we may prevail against him<br>
And take our revenge on him.”<br>
But the Lord is with me like a dread champion;<br>
Therefore my persecutors will stumble and not prevail.<br>
They will be utterly ashamed, because they have failed,<br>
With an everlasting disgrace that will not be forgotten. (Jer. 20:7–11)</p>
</blockquote>

<p>It’s because of Jeremiah’s obedience and love of God, goodness, and truth that he cannot hold in his words of warning, but those same words are also the cause of his grief, and he suffers for them. So throughout the book, Jeremiah moves constantly between grief at the loss of his nation, anger at the people’s unrepentant, persistent evil (including their persecution of him for speaking the truth), a desire for their just judgment, and praise of God: “There is none like You, O Lord; You are great, and great is Your name in might. Who would not fear You, O King of the nations? Indeed it is Your due!” (Jer. 10:6–7). In Jeremiah, we’re given an honest look at love mixed with confusion and pain:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Your words were found and I ate them,<br>
And Your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart;<br>
For I have been called by Your name,<br>
O Lord God of hosts….</p>

<p>Why has my pain been perpetual<br>
And my wound incurable, refusing to be healed?<br>
Will You indeed be to me like a deceptive stream<br>
With water that is unreliable? (Jer. 15:16–18)</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Yet despite his distress, he remains faithful. Plenty of “prophets” at the time took the easy way out and told the people what they wanted to hear, but Jeremiah could see beyond his immediate situation to the end: “But the Lord is with me like a dread champion; therefore my persecutors will stumble and not prevail.” He came to the same conclusion as Asaph, the writer of Psalm 73:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>When I pondered to understand [the seeming success of the wicked],<br>
It was troublesome in my sight<br>
Until I came into the sanctuary of God;<br>
Then I perceived their end.<br>
Surely You set them in slippery places;<br>
You cast them down to destruction….</p>

<p>When my heart was embittered<br>
And I was pierced within,<br>
Then I was senseless and ignorant;<br>
I was like a beast before You.<br>
Nevertheless I am continually with You;<br>
You have taken hold of my right hand.<br>
With Your counsel You will guide me,<br>
And afterward receive me to glory.</p>

<p>Whom have I in heaven but You?<br>
And besides You, I desire nothing on earth.<br>
My flesh and my heart may fail,<br>
But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.<br>
For, behold, those who are far from You will perish;<br>
You have destroyed all those who are unfaithful to You.<br>
But as for me, the nearness of God is my good;<br>
I have made the Lord God my refuge,<br>
That I may tell of all Your works.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Here, it is the understanding of the end of man—both the justice of final judgment for those who fight against God and the glory of eternity for those who love him—that gives strength.</p>

<p>Since human nature has not changed, if <em>you</em> are telling of all his works to those who have rejected him, pain and confusion born out of love for God and neighbor are likely ahead of you, as well. But God—the strength of your heart and your portion forever—has taken hold of your right hand. You are with him now, and afterward he will receive you to glory.</p>

<p>May we all take this to heart and persevere.</p>
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title: Get “Yellow & Pink” While You Can
topic: Science
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 03/23/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/get-yellow-pink-while-you-can
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Imagine two wooden dolls—one freshly painted yellow and the other pink—lying outside, drying on an old newspaper. These dolls come to life and contemplate where they came from. That’s the premise behind the book <em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Yellow-Pink-William-Steig/dp/0374487359" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Yellow &amp; Pink</a></em>, a short tale that explores how absurd it would be to explain the complexity of creation by chance and time.</p>

<p>I was reminded of this book while my daughter was reading <em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Easy-Understand-Defeating-Darwinism-Opening/dp/0830813608" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds</a></em> by the late Phillip Johnson. That’s also a great book that highlights the scientific establishment’s efforts to stifle debate, open-mindedness, and critical thinking when it comes to the discussion on origins.</p>

<p>Many people (on both sides of the evolution debate) are familiar with Phillip Johnson and his books (e.g., <em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Darwin-Trial-Phillip-Johnson/dp/0830838317" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Darwin on Trial</a></em>). They’re standard reading for Christians and other intelligent design advocates. <em>Yellow &amp; Pink</em>, however, is far less known. My wife and I used to read it to our once-elementary-aged children. We pulled it out recently to get reacquainted with it and love it for its simplicity. Get it before it’s <a href="/w/god-was-canceling-people-before-it-was-cool" rel="noopener" target="_blank">canceled</a>.</p>
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title: Pick Your Battles with Unbelievers
topic: Tactics and Tools
author: Tim Barnett
date: 03/25/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/pick-your-battles-with-unbelievers
content:
            <div> 
		<p>A man stumbles into the ER with a scraped knee, a sprained ankle, and a gunshot wound to his head. What injury do the doctors treat first? This isn’t a trick question. They prioritize the most serious injury first—the gunshot wound—even if that means ignoring other injuries. ER doctors call this <em>medical triage</em>.</p>

<p>I think something similar can aid the apologist in his defense of the truths of Christianity. In our engagement with unbelievers, we should do <em>theological triage</em>. This is a concept coined by Albert Mohler. In an article titled <em>A Call for Theological Triage and Christian Maturity,</em> he <a href="https://albertmohler.com/2005/07/12/a-call-for-theological-triage-and-christian-maturity">says</a>, “God’s truth is to be defended at every point and in every detail, but responsible Christians must determine which issues deserve first-rank attention in a time of theological crisis.”</p>

<p>How we rank doctrines has practical implications for how we do apologetics. If you believe everything is essential, then you will die on every hill. And if you believe nothing is essential, you won’t die on any hill. Both of these extremes have serious problems.</p>

<p>In reality, not all doctrines are equal. There are some things that are essential and some things that aren’t.</p>

<p>For example, Christians all agree the gospel is essential for salvation. Paul calls it a matter “of first importance” (1 Cor. 15:3). Likewise, the deity of Christ is an essential doctrine. “Unless you believe that I am He,” Jesus said, “you will die in your sins” (Jn. 8:24) These are first-rank doctrines.</p>

<p>There are other beliefs, though, where Paul allows for a difference of opinion, like esteeming “one day as better than another” (Rom. 14:5).</p>

<p>So there is a <em>hierarchy</em> ranging from big stuff to little stuff. And this hierarchy should impact how we do apologetics with unbelievers.</p>

<p>There was a time when I didn’t make these distinctions. There was a time when I was an adamant young-earth creationist and often found myself in passionate arguments with <em>non-Christian</em> friends over the age of the earth. This went on for months. Then it occurred to me: What <em>if</em> I succeed in convincing my friend that, say, radiometric dating is unreliable? Would it mean atheism is false? No. Would it mean Christianity is true? No. I was putting major time and effort into a minor issue. I was treating a sprained ankle while ignoring the bullet in his brain.</p>

<p>I have a better strategy. Now, with unbelievers, I do an end run around <em>how</em> God created—since this is an in-house discussion between believers—and focus on <em>that</em> God created—a primary issue. I bypass the <em>days of creation</em> debate by focusing on something all Christians agree on: the <em>event of creation</em>.</p>

<p>I call this the <em>Family Matters</em> tactic. When someone who’s not in the Christian family brings up a matter of secondary importance, it is appropriate, in some situations, to decline debating with them about it. Instead, direct them to the diversity of views Christianity has to offer. Here, diversity is our strength, not our weakness.</p>

<p>For example, if a young-earth creationist is challenged on the age of the earth, say something like, “Well, I could be mistaken on this. In fact, there are faithful Christians who believe the earth is billions of years old. But <em>even if</em> the earth is old, you still need a Creator to get something from nothing. How do you explain why there is something rather than nothing?”</p>

<p>This is a tactical move to help shift the discussion away from non-essentials towards essentials. Whenever possible, we should avoid debating family matters with non-family members. In other words, if you want to debate family matters, you need to be in the family. So, when talking about certain issues, <em>being in the family matters.</em></p>

<p>This, by the way, isn’t always easy. It takes humility, maturity, and self-control. Our impulse will be to respond to <em>every</em> challenge. Don’t take the bait. Remember to do theological triage, and pick your battles.</p>
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title: How to Receive Critical Feedback
topic: Christian Living
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 04/01/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/how-to-receive-critical-feedback
content:
            <div> 
		<p>The student didn’t mince words on her evaluation of my talk: “Alan is homophobic.” Two other feedback forms included the same sentiment. Another student wrote, “Please avoid being so judgmental next time, and if you ever speak to teens again, tweak the presentation to apply to us. Stop talking about other people’s sin…this was a waste of time judging other Christians, which Jesus taught us not to do.” That’s harsh feedback. Should I ignore what they wrote? Retire early? What do <em>you</em> do when you receive critical feedback?</p>

<p>Even though only four out of 270 students gave negative feedback, I don’t want to ignore what they wrote. It’s possible I can learn something from their responses. I want to be a person who pursues truth, even if it’s critical feedback about my ideas or the manner in which I communicate them. That requires humility, which isn’t always easy to practice.</p>

<p>Here are three steps to take when you receive critical feedback.</p>

<p><strong>First, realize you won’t please everyone.</strong> If your expectations are too high, you’ll be often disappointed. You can say the most truthful comment in the most gracious way, but someone will still get angry. I’m not claiming that what I said and how I said it was perfect, but I need to set realistic expectations. Some things you say will rile people up no matter how graciously and compassionately you say them. Your job is to ensure that <em>you</em> <em>don’t add unnecessary offense </em>to what you say. Even Jesus’ perfect responses weren’t met with universal praise. Don’t expect yours will be, either.</p>

<p><strong>Second, discern the truth from the error.</strong> Sure, it’s possible someone is simply angry with me and isn’t being fair with their feedback. It’s also possible there’s validity to what they’re saying. Being committed to the truth requires I investigate whether there’s any legitimacy to what they’re saying.</p>

<p>The early church was charged with a similar task: “Examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil” (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Thessalonians+5%3A21-22&amp;version=NASB1995">1 Thess. 5:21–22</a>). Many claims can contain truth <em>and</em> error. It’s prudent to discern one from the other. “Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+john+4%3A1&amp;version=NASB1995">1 Jn. 4:1</a>). Not everything first-century believers heard was true. They had to discern whether something was from the Holy Spirit or the spirit of the antichrist (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+john+4%3A2-3&amp;version=NASB1995">1 Jn: 4:2–3</a>). It was a critical distinction.</p>

<p>In the context of assessing feedback, our job is to discover whether there’s any merit to the critique. In addition to my own honest introspection about my presentation, it’s also valuable to solicit the candid feedback from another person to corroborate or contradict the student’s assessment. When asked, others who were present during my presentations felt the charge of homophobia was unfounded. Besides, it’s often unclear what is meant by “Alan is homophobic.” It could just mean they disagreed with my claim that Scripture says homosexual sex is a sin. Using terms with the suffix “phobic” is often merely <a href="/w/the-fear-of-phobic-">a form of name-calling and used as a substitute for a legitimate argument</a>.</p>

<p>I also considered the charge that I was wrong to judge other Christians, especially since the student claimed that Jesus taught us not to judge. This claim, however, is obviously false. Not only did Jesus support judging people, he also taught his followers <em>how </em>to judge another believer (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matt+18%3A15-20&amp;version=NASB">Matt. 18:15–20</a>). Even Jesus’ oft-cited words “Do not judge” don’t support the student’s claim since Jesus follows up his statement with an explanation of <em>how </em>to properly judge a brother (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matt+7%3A1-5&amp;version=NASB1995">Matt. 7:1–5</a>).</p>

<p>Perhaps the feedback that had merit was the student’s request for me to “tweak the presentation to apply to [teens].” Though I always adapt my content to fit my audience’s demographic, it’s possible I didn’t do enough. To be honest, it’s difficult to know what exactly is meant by the request, but I’m still taking the feedback to heart and honestly reviewing my presentation. I’ll be teaching on the same content again in the next few weeks and will be looking for ways to adapt my material. Bottom line, I’m looking for any truth in critical feedback where I can improve what I���m saying or doing.</p>

<p><strong>Third, stay faithful.</strong> It’s tempting to be discouraged when people are critical. If I were to throw in the towel at the first negative comment, I would have given up a long time ago. Don’t let the criticism paralyze you. You need to embrace feedback, make changes where necessary, and then press on. Your job is to be faithful to <a href="/w/tell-the-truth-and-leave-the-results-up-to-god">present the truth in a clear and gracious way and then leave the results up to God</a> (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+3%3A6-7&amp;version=NASB1995">1 Cor. 3:6–7</a>).</p>
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title: Knowing the Purpose of Speaking the Truth Will Help You Persevere
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 03/30/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/knowing-the-purpose-of-speaking-the-truth-will-help-you-persevere
content:
            <div> 
		<p>As I’m reading through the Old Testament this year, I’m learning much from the prophets as to how we should think about, face, and respond to our cultural challenges today. They were called by God to give their lives to speaking the truth for him—a vocation that would bring upon them everything from their own depression and despair to execution.</p>

<p>If we have any romantic vision of the prophetic life rolling around in our minds from childhood Sunday school classes, a realistic look at the Old Testament will put that right to rest. I’m willing to bet you will never be thrown into a cistern for speaking the truth about God and his world as Jeremiah was, but in our own small way, we also will encounter many of the pressures, temptations, fears, frustrations, and grief suffered by the prophets of old, so there is much we can learn by watching them—if only to be assured that we are not failing as God’s ambassadors if we share their same feelings and reactions.</p>

<p>Can you relate to <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=jer+8%3A18-9%3A3&amp;version=NASB1995">Jeremiah’s tears</a> as he watched his nation destroy itself? His recognition of his <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=jer+1%3A4-8&amp;version=NASB1995">inadequacy</a>? <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Kings%2019%3A3%2D5&amp;version=NASB1995">Elijah</a> requesting, in depression and despair, that God take his life? <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+kings+22%3A13-28&amp;version=NIV">Micaiah</a> yelling out in frustration as he’s dragged away to prison, “Mark my words, all you people”? <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=is+6%3A1-6&amp;version=NASB1995">Isaiah’s devastation</a> over his own sinfulness before a holy God? The <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=jer+16%3A1-4&amp;version=NASB1995">sacrifices</a> they <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=ezek+24%3A15-18&amp;version=NASB1995">made</a> for the sake of faithfulness? You’re not alone. Their God-given role cost them, and it will cost you.</p>

<p>Since we, like them, are also called as ambassadors to speak truth to people who are, in many ways, hostile to the truth, it’s important that we look carefully into what sustained the prophets who went through these difficulties before us. I touched on this a couple of weeks ago with <a href="/w/persecution-pain-perseverance-and-love-in-jeremiah">a lesson from Jeremiah</a>. Today, I was struck by something that can seem odd at first glance, but that, when grasped, has the potential to radically reorient the way you view your work, relieving feelings of frustration and failure you may be enduring unnecessarily.</p>

<p>The idea I was struck by has to do with how the purpose of our message connects with our perseverance. No one wants to continue to do something difficult if doing so is proving to be pointless. But how do we assess whether or not our efforts have been pointless? The only way to do this is by knowing the correct <em>purpose</em> of our work. If we have the wrong goal in mind, then the fact that our work does not achieve that <em>wrong </em>goal does not disprove its value. It’s only by measuring whether or not we are achieving the <em>true</em> goal that we can know if our work is valuable, that it’s accomplishing what it’s supposed to accomplish.</p>

<p>When looking at the work of the prophets, isn’t it strange, you might think, that God continued to send those prophets to the same people, over and over, with the same message of their sin and coming judgment, calling them to repentance, <em>despite the fact that he had already decided their judgment was sure</em>? As he said through Isaiah,</p>

<blockquote>
<p>For though your people, O Israel, may be like the sand of the sea,<br>
Only a remnant within them will return;<br>
A destruction is determined, overflowing with righteousness.</p>

<p>For a complete destruction, one that is decreed, the Lord God of hosts will execute in the midst of the whole land. (Isa. 10:22–23)</p>
</blockquote>

<p>After the evils of <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jeremiah+15%3A1-4&amp;version=NASB1995">King Manasseh’s</a> day, the coming judgment of Judah was a certainty. God had determined it would take place. Despite brief moments of revival, their rebellion would increase until the exile to Babylon decades later. God declared it. In fact, once God had determined this would be his course of action, he intended for the people to remain unrepentant so as to secure that destruction, as he explained to Isaiah:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>He said, “Go and tell this people:<br>
‘Keep on listening, but do not perceive; keep on looking, but do not understand.’<br>
“Render the hearts of this people insensitive,<br>
Their ears dull,<br>
And their eyes dim,<br>
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,<br>
Hear with their ears,<br>
Understand with their hearts,<br>
And return and be healed.”</p>

<p>Then I said, “Lord, how long?” And He answered,<br>
“Until cities are devastated and without inhabitant,<br>
Houses are without people<br>
And the land is utterly desolate,<br>
The Lord has removed men far away,<br>
And the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land. (Isa. 6:9–12)</p>
</blockquote>

<p>And yet, despite the certainty of his decreed judgment, God continued to send prophets to them. Listen to what he says to Ezekiel:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>I have sent you to them who should listen to you; yet the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you, since they are not willing to listen to me…. Son of man, take into your heart all My words which I will speak to you and listen closely. Go to the exiles, to the sons of your people, and speak to them and tell them, whether they listen or not, “Thus says the Lord God.” (Ezek. 3:6–11)</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Since their sentence had already been determined, the ultimate purpose of the prophets’ message could not have been repentance (though they did call the people to repentance, reminding them of God’s mercy for those who turn to him). The people’s hearts were insensitive, their ears dull, and their eyes dim according to God’s purpose. Repentance was not in God’s plan, here, because his intention was judgment.</p>

<p>If, in this case, the goal of the prophets’ repeated warnings of judgment for breaking the laws of their covenant was not persuasion and repentance, why <em>did</em> God repeatedly send them? What was the purpose? I think the purpose was similar to what Paul says about the Law revealing and even stirring up our innate sin “so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful” (Rom. 7:13). In other words, the prophets’ warnings and commands were meant to draw out the extent of the people’s guilt and rebellion, revealing it clearly to all. Not only was their sin fully revealed, but they also turned down endless opportunities to repent, rejecting both God’s righteousness (as expressed through the Law) and his grace. In this way, they were shown to be “utterly sinful,” publicly justifying God’s judgment.</p>

<p>So, if God sometimes sends prophets for repentance and sometimes for judgment, neither goal can be the ultimate purpose of his sending prophets. Instead, both of those outcomes serve a greater purpose: God’s glory. God is glorified when people believe his message and repent, and he is glorified when they reject his message and are judged. Their “unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God” when, through their sin, “the truth of God abounds to his glory” as he expresses his righteousness <a href="/w/why-did-god-create-people-if-he-knew-so-many-would-go-to-hell-">in judgment</a> (Rom. 3:3–8). If this sounds strange to you, the next time you read through the psalms, pay attention to how often God’s judgment of evil elicits praise. It is a constant refrain.</p>

<p>We need to have a correct understanding of the <em>purpose</em> of speaking the truth if we are to rightly judge whether or not our efforts are succeeding and thereby persevere. The goal is God’s glory. <em>That</em> is the ultimate purpose of our work as Christ’s ambassadors. We speak the truth for the sake of God’s glory, then <em>he</em> decides how to use it—either in judgment or for repentance, depending on his purposes. We don’t need to know how he will use it. All we need to know is that we speak the truth for his glory, and when we speak the truth, we <em>succeed</em>—he is glorified. No matter how people respond. This is why we do not give up.</p>
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title: Do Not Nod Your Head to Lies
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 03/31/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/do-not-nod-your-head-to-lies
content:
            <div> 
		<p>From a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/30/politics/south-dakota-transgender-sports-kristi-noem/index.html">CNN news story</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Though the two executive orders signed by Noem do not explicitly mention transgender athletes, they ​reference the supposed harms of the participation of ���males” in women’s athletics — an echo of the transphobic claim, cited in other similar legislative initiatives, that transgender women are not women. The orders also reference “biological sex,” a disputed term that refers to the sex as listed on students’ original birth certificates.</p>

<p>It’s not possible to know a person’s gender identity at birth, and there is no consensus criteria for assigning sex at birth.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The term “biological sex” does <em>not</em> “refer to the sex as listed on students’ original birth certificates.” In fact, the sex listed on students’ original birth certificates refers to their biological sex. Their objectively real <em>physical body</em> is the referent.</p>

<p>Secondly, there is not a person reading this CNN article who believes “there is no consensus criteria” for recognizing (<em>not</em> “assigning”) a person’s sex. Not. A. One. The fact that intersex conditions exist <a href="/w/intersex-people-don-t-prove-there-are-more-than-two-sexes">does not change the fact</a> that everyone knows the physical difference between boys and girls.</p>

<p>We’ve now reached a point in this country where a major news organization is making statements they know to be false—statements which every one of their readers knows to be false—and not only are people nodding their heads in agreement with those statements, but they’re also shaming anyone who would dare speak up against them.</p>

<p>Please understand that in order to maintain this level of a reality rewrite, the shame is necessary to keep the truth at bay. And shame will not be enough. Increasing force will no doubt follow. As Matt Anderson <a href="/w/why-same-sex-marriage-can-t-afford-to-be-tolerant">explained so eloquently</a> years ago when people were merely ignoring the reality of the unique nature of the man-woman union (something that is not even as immediately apparent as the basic difference between men and women): “Same-sex marriage will lead to a soft-despotism <em>because it has to.</em>” It has to in order to ensure everyone maintains the mirage.</p>

<p>It will take quite a lot of force to get everyone to nod their head to this one, so be ready for it. But I came across <a href="https://twitter.com/SwipeWright/status/1371940526144942083">this tweet by Colin Wright</a>, and I think it is correct:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>As I’ve said before, I view defending not just sex diffs but the reality of biological sex itself as reality’s last stand. If/when the levee completely breaks on this issue, then we’ve lost our collective tether to reality and all the dominoes fall.</p>

<p>This is the hill to die on.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>If they can get you to say that “biological sex” is a fiction and we don’t know how to tell the difference between boys and girls, they can get you to say anything.</p>

<p>Do not contribute to this lie.</p>
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title: A Good Friday Reminder about Suffering
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 04/02/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/a-good-friday-reminder-about-suffering
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Tim Challies wrote a wonderful reminder of why we should “<a href="https://www.challies.com/articles/always-read-the-story-to-the-end/">Always Read the Story to the End</a>”:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>We often see God weaving narratives that make sense only in light of the concluding pages. Through the words of God’s book and the history of God’s church, we see the importance of reading to the final chapter. And it is then, at the end, we see the work of God and exclaim, “Look what God has done!”…</p>

<p>And so, too, in our stories. What we see through the vantage point of time in others’ lives, we must take by faith in our own. We are sometimes faced with circumstances that seem as if they must mark the final act. We sometimes encounter providences that make us believe the book has been closed and all has been lost. Yet when we are pressed, we must not think we have been crushed, but believe that God can still bring about a great redemption. When we are struck down, we must not think we have been destroyed, but rather have confidence that we are being prepared for some great blessing. When we are persecuted we must not determine we have been abandoned, but know that we are being made ready for some great usefulness to God’s plans and purposes. We must wait, we must withhold judgment, we must read to the end! For no story, least of all our own, makes sense until we have read all the way to the final page. It is only then, in light of the whole, that we see the skill, the ability, the genius of the Author.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>This, of course, is merely the conclusion of his post. I encourage you to read <a href="https://www.challies.com/articles/always-read-the-story-to-the-end/">the whole thing</a> because the meat is in his long list of actual stories from throughout history where God did great things through suffering—including the <em>greatest</em> of all things. And since it is Good Friday, I will share that one here:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>We see Jesus, the Son of God, unjustly arrested, brutally mistreated, horrifically whipped. We watch in horror as his hands and feet are nailed to a cross, we mourn as a spear is plunged into his side, we grieve as he is lowered from that cross and laid in a tomb. As the skies go dark, so too do our hearts. But the story is not over! On the third day we enter the tomb with the disciples and rejoice to find it empty, for Christ is risen! Death could not hold him. With joy we read the final chapter of the gospels and cry, “Look what God has done!”</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Because our great God of redemption and grace is the Author, suffering is not the end. It is only the middle.</p>
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title: A Key Ingredient for the Christian Life
topic: Christian Living
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 04/06/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/a-key-ingredient-for-the-christian-life
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Do you want to experience the good life? Look no further. Just add humility to your day. It’s a key ingredient for the Christian life and, indeed, life in general. Without humility, we are robbed of some of the great joys and virtues of life.</p>

<p>Here are a few aspects of life that require humility.</p>

<p><strong>Friendship requires humility.</strong> Chances are you know someone who routinely talks about himself, shares his own problems, and tells you of his future adventures. After a while, you recognize this is a one-way relationship. It’s not only boring, it’s superficial. It doesn’t feel like he cares about you. Don’t be that kind of person. If you want to be a good friend, practice humility. It’s fine to talk about yourself, but a humble person also cares deeply about others. In the course of any relationship, there will be times when one of you goes through a hard time and the focus is on them for a season. Generally, though, healthy relationships are characterized by a give and take. Humility is a key ingredient that makes that possible.</p>

<p><strong>Service requires humility.</strong> We’re commanded to serve others. That’s difficult if you are always looking out for yourself. That’s why Scripture tells us to consider others better than ourselves: “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others” (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=phil+2%3A3-4&amp;version=NASB1995">Phil. 2:3–4</a>). Notice what quality the passage says is essential to bring about such an attitude: humility.</p>

<p><strong>Feedback requires humility.</strong> It’s not easy to <a href="/w/how-to-receive-critical-feedback">receive critical feedback</a>. We don’t like being told we messed up or didn’t do something well. If you want to improve at a skill, though, humility is your friend. You have to be willing to consider that you can improve at something. If you find yourself always getting defensive when people who care about you give you feedback, chances are you’re lacking humility.</p>

<p><strong>Faith requires humility.</strong> What does it mean to have faith? The biblical notion of <a href="/w/is-faith-blind-">faith is best characterized by trust</a>. We put our trust in him (Jesus) who is trustworthy. That requires us to acknowledge that we have committed crimes against God and deserve to be punished. Not only are we guilty, but we’re incapable of doing anything to resolve our predicament. We’re totally at the mercy of God. That is a humbling situation. It’s only when we acknowledge our incapacity to do anything to save ourselves that we can put our trust in Christ to save us. Accepting that gospel message requires we have humility.</p>

<p>These aspects of life—and many more—require us to develop the virtue of humility. It’s no surprise that Jesus embodied that virtue. It’s also no surprise that we’re commanded to model after him. Paul tells us to “have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=phil%202%3A5-8&amp;version=NASB1995">Phil. 2:5–8</a>). If we want to see what humility looks like, Jesus is the perfect example.</p>

<p>Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting humility is an easy character quality to develop. Whatever the cost, though, Scripture teaches us that it’s entirely worth it.</p>
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title: A Daily Prayer for This Cultural Moment
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 04/13/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/a-daily-prayer-for-this-cultural-moment
content:
            <div> 
		<p>We live in a time when many lesser things are commonly placed above truth. Personal preference, the pursuit of pleasure, a commitment to political ideals (or ideologies of any kind), and utopian dreams all come first. And when other things come first, truth is considered merely a tool for achieving those other things—a tool to be abandoned when it doesn’t serve the “more important” purpose we’re committed to. The idea that we need to conform our ideas, words, and behavior to something fixed outside of us—even when it hinders our goals—is foreign to most people today.</p>

<p>Once you abandon truth for the sake of something “greater,” you will go wrong, no matter how lofty and noble you think your goals are. Truth is a guardrail protecting us from the biggest danger we face as human beings: foolish human ideas. It reveals problems as they really are. It points to solutions that will truly help. It serves goodness. It glorifies God.</p>

<p>But it can also interfere with our plans, prove us wrong, aid our ideological opponents, discourage us, and reveal things about us we would rather not admit. It humbles us—and worse, it threatens our autonomy. This is why we need God’s help to embrace it.</p>

<p>The temptation to close our eyes to truth, to tweak it, to hide the inconvenient bits for the sake of something “good” is especially strong in our culture right now. But every truly good thing can only be discovered, revealed, and accomplished in truth, so we ignore truth at our peril. Instead, we must seek it, submit to it, champion it, and allow ourselves to be changed by it rather than viewing it as a dispensable tool to be discarded when it interferes with our well-intentioned narrative and goals. You cannot blur truth for the sake of serving God because only truth can point to the God who is true.</p>

<p>Our culture’s cavalier attitude towards truth is in the very air we breathe, and if you think you won’t be affected by it, you are wrong. If you don’t actively fight it, you will be conformed to it. Each of us needs to ask God to enable us to submit to truth because each of us needs his help.</p>

<p>As I’ve been praying for our culture’s return to truth, I’ve found that my prayers for myself have centered around six areas of my relationship to truth, so I simplified the categories into a single prayer that I hope you’ll join me in praying every day until this cultural moment has passed. Pray it as it is, or use it as an outline, filling in the details of the specific situations you’re facing:</p>

<p style="padding-left: 40px;">Father, move my heart to desire truth.<br>
Sharpen my eyes to see truth.<br>
Mold my mind to think truth.<br>
Embolden my mouth to speak truth.<br>
Strengthen my hands to serve truth.<br>
Grant me love to adorn truth.</p>

<p>Amen.</p>
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title: Why the Puddle Analogy Fails against Fine-Tuning
topic: Science
author: Tim Barnett
date: 04/22/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/why-the-puddle-analogy-fails-against-fine-tuning
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Many people are fascinated by the <a href="/w/a-finely-tuned-universe-necessity-chance-or-design-">fine-tuning argument</a> for God’s existence. The late Christopher Hitchens called the fine-tuning argument “the most intriguing.” Physicist Sean Carroll <a href="https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/debates/god-and-cosmology-the-existence-of-god-in-light-of-contemporary-cosmol/">referred to it</a> as “the best argument that the theists have when it comes to cosmology.”</p>

<p>But just like other arguments for God’s existence, there are rejoinders. One popular-level response is called “the puddle analogy.” The analogy was originally expressed in Douglas Adams’s <em>The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time:</em></p>

<blockquote>
<p>This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, “This is an interesting world I find myself in—an interesting hole I find myself in—fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!” This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, frantically hanging on to the notion that everything’s going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Adams’s analogy offers a creative illustration of the anthropic principle. Summarizing the analogy, Philosopher William Lane Craig <a href="https://www.biola.edu/blogs/good-book-blog/2020/should-a-puddle-be-surprised-it-exists-should-we">writes</a>,</p>

<blockquote>
<p>One is appealing to a self-selection effect in order to eliminate surprise at what one observes, however improbable. The anthropomorphized puddle can be surprised at its own existence only if the hole exists. <em>So it shouldn’t be surprised by how well the hole and it fit. If the hole were not there, the puddle would not exist to be surprised about it.</em> [Emphasis added.]</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Some think the puddle analogy deals a critical blow against the fine-tuning argument. If the pondering puddle shouldn’t be surprised about its existence, we shouldn’t either. But does the analogy work? Are advocates of the fine-tuning argument engaging in “puddle thinking?”</p>

<p>Arguments from analogy are a special kind of inductive argument. Basically, they reason that because two things are similar, what is true of the first is <em>also</em> true of the second. For an argument from analogy to work, the analogy has to be a <em>good</em> analogy</p>

<p>Of course, no analogy is perfect—there will always be differences. But for an argument from analogy to work, the similarities have to be significant and the differences have to be superficial. But if the opposite is true—if the differences are significant and the similarities are superficial—well, then, we have a problem. In other words, if the analogy fails, so does the argument.</p>

<h2>Puddle Problems</h2>

<p>In a <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2104.03381.pdf">recent article</a> titled “The Trouble with Puddle Thinking,” astronomers Geraint Lewis and Luke Barnes explain why this analogy fails.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Consider more closely the puddle’s reasoning. Let’s name our puddle <em>Doug</em>. He has noticed a precise match between two things: 1) his shape and 2) the shape of the hole in which he lives. Doug is amazed! What Doug doesn’t know is that, given A) the fluidity of water, B) the solidity of the hole, and C) the constant downward force of gravity, he will <em>always</em> take the same shape as his hole. If the hole had been different, his shape would adjust to match it. <strong>Any hole will do for a puddle. </strong></p>

<p>This is precisely where the analogy fails: any universe will <em>not</em> do for life. Life is not a fluid. It will not adjust to any old universe. There could have been a completely dead universe: perhaps one that lasts for 1 second before recollapsing or is so sparse that no two particles ever interact in the entire history of the universe. [Emphasis added.]</p>
</blockquote>

<p>In the puddle analogy, the puddle—Doug—can exist in <em>any</em> hole. That’s how puddles work. The <em>shape</em> of the hole is irrelevant to the <em>existence</em> of the puddle. If you change the shape of the hole, the shape of the puddle changes, but you <em>always</em> get a puddle.</p>

<p>The problem is, life doesn’t work like that. Life <em>cannot</em> exist in any universe. The evidence from fine-tuning shows that a life-permitting universe is extremely rare. If you change certain conditions of the universe, you cannot get life anywhere in the universe. For instance, slightly increase the mass of the electron or the up quark, and get a universe with nothing but neutrons. No stars. No planets. No chemistry. No life.</p>

<p>See the difference? We know that changing the dimensions of a hole <em>doesn’t</em> affect the existence of the puddle. Any old hole will do. There is no fine-tuning for puddles. However, we also know that changing the conditions of the universe <em>does</em> affect the existence of life. There <em>is</em> fine-tuning for life.</p>

<p>So, the puddle analogy has a problem. And it’s a big one. It’s a <em>false analogy</em>. The analogy doesn’t work because getting a life-permitting universe is vastly different from getting a puddle-permitting hole.</p>
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title: Let Your Worldview Shape How You Do Your Work
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 04/27/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/let-your-worldview-shape-how-you-do-your-work
content:
            <div> 
		<p>I once <a href="/w/god-placed-you-where-you-are-for-a-reason">wrote</a>, “At Stand to Reason, our goal is not to train apologists; our goal is to train apologist bankers, and apologist janitors, and apologist mothers and fathers—people who apply the Christian worldview and the work of Jesus to every aspect of their lives, wherever they are.”</p>

<p>Being a Christian doesn’t mean doing a particular job; rather, it means becoming a particular kind of person—one who is being conformed by the Holy Spirit “to the image of His Son” (Rom. 8:29) so that by our God-honoring and God-reflecting behavior, we will “bear fruit for God” (Rom. 7:4) and “proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Pet. 2:9).</p>

<p>Because God’s goal is to conform us to the image of his Son, it’s not enough to have information about God, the gospel, and the Christian worldview. That information ought to be shaping every aspect of our lives, and there’s nothing that takes up more of our time than the work that we do, paid or unpaid. Have you integrated the truth of your worldview with your work?</p>

<p>This won’t happen automatically; you need to be intentional. And as one example of how to pursue this, I appreciated the practical advice in <a href="https://tifwe.org/heres-how-you-can-develop-a-work-as-worship-mindset/">this post by Chris Chancey</a> at the Institute for Faith, Work &amp; Economics on developing a “‘work as worship’ mindset.” An excerpt:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>[U]nderstanding God’s command for us to use our skills and resources for his glory does not immediately transform our outlook on work….</p>

<p>The truth is, “work as worship” is a mindset that must be cultivated over time….</p>

<p>The first factor in cultivating a workship mindset is the daily petition for it.</p>

<p>Ask God to help you develop a vision by which you see every task or project as an opportunity to honor him. It may be days or months before you begin to notice the shift in how you process your work, but habitually and earnestly praying about this every day will help you adhere to Paul’s admonition in <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=rom+12%3A2&amp;version=ESV">Romans 12:2</a>: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (ESV)….</p>

<p>Understanding that God has called us to worship him in our work is only part of the process. Incorporating this theology of work into our lives requires intentionality.</p>

<p>A daily commitment to prayer and discernment, along with bringing your best effort to the table and faithfully serving those around you, will help you cultivate this workship mindset over time, <em>not overnight</em>.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Read the rest of <a href="https://tifwe.org/heres-how-you-can-develop-a-work-as-worship-mindset/">his post</a> for more on his other two points, being a servant and pursuing excellence.</p>
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title: Freedom Fading
topic: Other Worldviews
author: Greg Koukl
date: 05/01/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/freedom-fading
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn—Russian dissident, 10-year forced-labor Soviet Gulag inmate, Nobel Laureate, Christian—lamented the “fallacious belief” that “here such things are impossible,” that totalitarianism could not happen in one’s own country. “Alas,” he wrote, “all the evil of the twentieth century is possible everywhere on earth.”<a href="#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title="">[1]</a></p>

<p>Read those words carefully. It is the point I have been building towards in the last two issues of <em>Solid Ground</em>.<a href="#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title="">[2]</a></p>

<p>In the <a href="/w/iron-curtain-diary">first article</a>, I chronicled my own experiences behind the Iron Curtain in 1976 working with Christians living under brutal authoritarian rule in communist bloc countries like Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the former Soviet Union—places where believers suffered significant loss of personal liberty and, in some cases, severe persecution simply for following Christ.</p>

<p>In the <a href="/w/the-primal-heresy">next article</a>, I pointed out that citizens in any culture will ultimately be ruled by one of two fundamental forces: either truth or power. Any nation whose people lack the liberty to pursue, discover, and live by truth will be destined to live as victims of lies and frequently crushed under the heels of powerful oppressors.</p>

<p>I then briefly traced the development of the first great lie—what I called “the primal heresy”—from its inception in the Garden to its current divinization of self that some have labeled “expressive individualism.” At the Fall, mankind replaced the external truth of God’s world and God’s morality with the internal “truth” of bald personal preference and naked individual desire. The act of rebellion that traded truth “out there” for truth “in here”—the outside/inside distinction—marked the birth of what has come to be known as relativism.</p>

<p>Remember, relativism is the ultimate negation of truth, and when truth dies, power is all that remains. The immediate payoff for relativism—the unrestrained narcissism of expressive individualism—may be satisfying for a season, but it’s a fleeting gratification. Bald force eventually fills the truth vacuum, and relativists’ values begin cannibalizing relativists’ liberties. Whoever has the power to nullify liberty ultimately gets to enforce <em>his own</em> preferences. Postmodern people are leaning on a bent reed.</p>

<p>These musings have not been idle reflections, however. Rather, the downward arc of the shifting ethos of the West has revealed a disquieting trend. Liberal democracy—in the best sense of those words—is becoming a thing of the past. America is moving rapidly toward the brink of a peculiar species of totalitarianism that promises to erode freedom, hinder our ability to proclaim the gospel, and compromise our liberty to live peacefully with our Christian convictions.</p>

<p>I have not been alone in my concern. Émigrés from former Soviet bloc countries who fled the totalitarianism of communism for the freedom of America are mortified at the trend. When author Rod Dreher asked if they thought America was drifting toward some type of totalitarianism, “They all said <em>yes</em>—often emphatically”<a href="#_edn3" name="_ednref3" title="">[3]</a> (emphasis in original).</p>

<h2>Totalitarianism</h2>

<p>I wrote “peculiar species of totalitarianism” above because what we are experiencing now is actually an amalgam of two forms of totalitarianism—soft and hard. First, a general description, though.</p>

<p>Totalitarianism is not the same as dictatorship, where an individual tyrant’s jackboot stands on the neck of liberty. That is simple authoritarianism. Totalitarianism goes further. Drawing on insight from expert Hannah Arendt, Dreher clarifies:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>A totalitarian society is one in which an ideology seeks to displace all prior traditions and institutions, with the goal of bringing all aspects of society under control of that ideology. A totalitarian state is one that aspires to nothing less than <em>defining and controlling reality</em>. Truth is whatever the rulers decide it is.<a href="#_edn4" name="_ednref4" title="">[4]</a> [Emphasis added.]</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Notice the militant relativism that makes totalitarianism possible. When truth comes not from the outside but from the inside, power prevails. Truth becomes “whatever the rulers decide it is.”</p>

<p>The indoctrination to an alternate reality at the heart of totalitarianism has a curious effect. When reality is persuasively redefined by the incessant drone of political propaganda and abetted by not-so-subtle social pressures, the populace is gradually persuaded by it and <em>willingly</em> embraces it in large numbers as the high moral ground. Those who do not are vilified as enemies of the good (“haters,” in the current vernacular)—the “good,” that is, as defined by the authorities. Orwell’s “Big Brother” comes immediately to mind.</p>

<p>At the moment, I am halfway through William Shirer’s remarkable work <em>The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich</em>. I realize it’s risky conjuring the image of fascist dictators to make a point. Some have done this so frequently and so frivolously that people are inclined not to take such allusions seriously. In this case, though, they ought to. Santayana famously warned, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”</p>

<p>Shirer noted the precise pattern I described above displayed by Germans in the 1930s, a dynamic (Shirer confessed) even <em>he</em> was vulnerable to: “A steady diet over the years of falsifications and distortions made a certain impression on one’s mind and often misled it.” He then referenced “the most outlandish assertions from seemingly educated and intelligent persons” who were obviously “parroting some piece of nonsense they had heard on the radio or read in the newspapers.” Opposing the nonsense was useless, he wrote, since “on such occasions one was met with such a stare of incredulity, such a shock of silence, as if one had blasphemed the Almighty.”<a href="#_edn5" name="_ednref5" title="">[5]</a></p>

<p>And so today. The propaganda of the Left regarding sexuality, gender, the “bigotry” and “hate” of Christians, etc., is so pervasive and rhetorically clever, it has become irresistibly persuasive to many who are mystified that some—especially religious conservatives—are not falling into step with the times. Worse, they’re angry at unpersuaded dissenters who now loom as dangerous enemies of the common good.</p>

<p>That siren song of the new order now presses in on us from two directions, creating the peculiar amalgam of totalitarian tyranny I spoke of.</p>

<h2>“Soft Totalitarianism”</h2>

<p>In soft totalitarianism, compliance is not enforced by government. Rather, private cultural institutions controlled by elites accomplish that task—the academy, the press, “enlightened” corporations, Hollywood, and especially those controlling social media.</p>

<p>Many of us, particularly the young, live out our social lives online—through Instagram, Facebook, Twitter—and manage our lives at the behest of its aggressive stepsisters, Amazon, Apple, and Google. We post, we purchase, we tweet, we opine, we share vital information and also gather vital information using their platforms.</p>

<p>These enterprises provide the bulk of our access to the outside world. It has become obvious to careful observers, though, that these digital giants are not neutral players in this game. We are being watched, and we are being tracked. Corporate Goliaths are assiduously collecting every piece of information they can on our purchasing habits, our preferences, our private lives—even our travel patterns. <a href="#_edn6" name="_ednref6" title="">[6]</a></p>

<p>Rod Dreher reports that this “surveillance capitalism hoovers up detailed personal data about individuals and analyzes it with sophisticated algorithms to predict people’s behavior.”<a href="#_edn7" name="_ednref7" title="">[7]</a></p>

<p>The initial goal of this online data harvesting is, of course, monetization of information—profit, for short. But there is a darker side. Sophisticated algorithms have another consequence. “The rapidly growing power of information technology and its ubiquitous presence in daily life,” Dreher warns, “immensely magnifies the ability of those who control institutions <em>to shape society according to their ideals</em>”<a href="#_edn8" name="_ednref8" title="">[8]</a> (emphasis added).</p>

<p>Have you noticed how frequently social media moguls have been silencing dissenters by using “community standards” guidelines that appear to guarantee civility in their domains but often serve to weed out political dissidents? Worse, many are able to economically retaliate against nonconformists by demonetizing their platforms or banning them from business access. Even offline, corporate giants are increasingly and openly indoctrinating employees with progressive politics as a de facto condition of continued employment.</p>

<p>This is soft totalitarianism. Left-leaning corporations and other elites are its willing agents, and we consumers are its willing subjects. They have their “bully pulpit,” but they also have their “big stick,” the not-so-subtle social pressures I mentioned earlier.</p>

<p>One of the strongest evidences of totalitarianism is punishment of dissent. Dissidents can be destroyed. Here are a few examples. There are many, many more.</p>

<h2>Shaming, Silencing, Canceling</h2>

<p>For years, I have noticed a common practice among Christians, even in the relatively safe spaces of churches or Christian retreats: They lower their voice when they mention the word “homosexual.” Why? Because they are afraid. They’ve unconsciously adopted this habit out of fear of being shamed, or attacked, or belittled, or bullied simply for broaching the topic. This fear, of course, is an indirect pressure. Other pressures are not so subtle.</p>

<p>Journalist Bari Weiss reports that in California and New York, secret meetings are being held—not on Zoom or Facebook (too public, too traceable, and too permanent), but in backyards.</p>

<p>Wealthy parents of children enrolled in prestigious $45,000-per-year private prep schools like Harvard-Westlake in L.A. or Fieldstone in New York are mortified that their kids are being indoctrinated in the resentment and fear connected with Critical Race Theory (CRT), “collective racial guilt,” and so-called “white fragility.”</p>

<p>They are horrified and they are scared, with most too frightened to speak up. “The school can ask you to leave for any reason,” one parent said. “Then...you’ll be known as a racist, which is worse than being called a murderer.” Students begged their parents not to be interviewed by Weiss for fear of social shaming. “If you publish my name, it would ruin my life,” one kid said.</p>

<p>“They have a pattern of shaming anyone who…dissents from the group narrative,” one mother explained. “Once someone shames one person, many chime in agreement. The times I speak up to defend those they shame, they attempt to shame me.”</p>

<p>“The ideology,” Weiss writes, “has changed children’s self-conception.” The propaganda is so intense and the sophistry so sophisticated, the kids have begun to believe and internalize the lies. Recall the pattern Shirer noted in Germany.</p>

<p>Though Weiss’s focus was on high-end private schools, the same pattern is in play everywhere—even in some “Christian” schools. Public schools are most vulnerable, though, because the Left controls that educational system in many states. “To resist this ideology is to go against the entire institutional world,” Weiss concludes.<a href="#_edn9" name="_ednref9" title="">[9]</a></p>

<p>Brendan Eich, creator of JavaScript and co-founder of Mozilla, served as its CEO until 2014. Then news surfaced of a 2008 donation of $1,000 to California’s Prop 8 limiting legal marriage to male-female unions. Though Eich never showed animosity towards the LGBT community in his personal or professional life, activists used social media to publicly pillory him, generating 50,000 signatures from those demanding Eich’s resignation. Because of his classical view of marriage, Brendan Eich was canceled from the company he founded.<a href="#_edn10" name="_ednref10" title="">[10]</a></p>

<p>West Town’s Nini’s Deli was Yelp’s highest-rated restaurant in Chicago and listed as one of their top 100 places to eat in the U.S. three years in a row. A Cuban-Mexican immigrant couple founded Nini’s, and their sons, Juan and José Riesco, ran it. All were Christians and members of the multiracial, ethnically diverse Metro Praise International church. Nini’s sported a celebrated cuisine of Cuban-inspired dishes and had commercial ties with Adidas, Intelligentsia Coffee, Bang Bang Pie, Molly’s Cupcakes, and Nike.</p>

<p>The Riesco’s success story came to a screeching halt in a matter of days, though, in June 2020. Because they did not publicly signal solidarity with Black Lives Matter, and because of their Christian stance on homosexuality, they were labeled racist and homophobic. Droves of former satisfied customers turned on them, and protesters descended on Nini’s Deli like a tidal wave.</p>

<p>Militants threatened to burn the deli down and kill the Riescos. They found out where family members worked and pressed the employers to terminate them, which they did. Under pressure from activists, all of Nini’s corporate partners denounced them and canceled them. Thousands mobbed the previously popular corner deli and shut it down.</p>

<p>“If you don’t put Black Lives Matter on your restaurant, it’s just guaranteed to get destroyed,” Juan said. The video footage of the hatred displayed in the name of anti-hatred is chilling.<a href="#_edn11" name="_ednref11" title="">[11]</a> The family fled its beloved Chicago in the middle of the night. The Riescos now live in Dallas.</p>

<p>Three years ago, Ryan Anderson published <em>When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment</em>. You can no longer buy it on Amazon, though. The book violates the company’s current standards. “We have chosen not to sell books that frame LGBTQ+ identity as a mental illness,” Amazon’s Brian Huseman wrote.</p>

<p>“Everyone agrees that gender dysphoria is a serious condition that causes great suffering,” Anderson replied. “There is a debate, however, which Amazon is seeking to shut down, about how best to treat patients who experience gender dysphoria. Amazon is using its massive power to distort the marketplace of ideas and is deceiving its own customers in the process.” <a href="#_edn12" name="_ednref12" title="">[12]</a></p>

<p>Amazon is responsible for 53% of book sales in the U.S. and 80% of all e-books. What other books will they blacklist, and how will this affect what publishers choose to publish?</p>

<p>“In July 2020, Niel Golightly, a 62-year-old Boeing communications chief was forced to resign for an article he wrote 33 years earlier. As a 29-year-old navy pilot, he’d argued against women serving in combat. He has since disavowed those views. No matter. Though Boeing admitted that the executive made “substantial” contributions in the short time he’d been there, the company has “zero tolerance for bigotry of any kind”—and, apparently, from any <em>time</em>, even the “bigotry” of a recanted view voiced half a lifetime ago.</p>

<p>Chief executive David Calhoun emphasized Boeing’s “unrelenting commitment to <em>diversity and inclusion</em> in <em>all</em> its dimensions, and to ensuring that <em>all</em> of our employees have an <em>equal</em> opportunity to contribute and excel” (emphasis added). The irony of his own statement escaped him, of course.<a href="#_edn13" name="_ednref13" title="">[13]</a></p>

<p>Soft totalitarianism is frequently enforced with an almost spiritual passion. Former Attorney General William Barr observed:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>The secular project has itself become a religion, pursued with religious fervor…including inquisitions and excommunication. Those who defy the creed risk a figurative burning at the stake—social, educational, and professional ostracism and exclusion waged through lawsuits and savage social media campaigns.<a href="#_edn14" name="_ednref14" title="">[14]</a></p>
</blockquote>

<h2>“Hard Totalitarianism”</h2>

<p>Indeed, the soft totalitarianism imposed by cultural elites can be harsh. When the government steps in, though, the totalitarian amalgam thus created between soft and hard can be Orwellian. For the sake of space, let me briefly offer two instances, though examples like these are increasing at an alarming rate.</p>

<p>In 2013, former Atlanta Fire Chief Kevin Cochran self-published a book for his men's Bible study that condemned homosexuality as contrary to God’s plan. For his efforts, he was suspended without pay for 30 days and told not to comment publicly on the affair.</p>

<p>When, in violation of then-mayor Kasim Reed’s directive, Cochran organized a public relations campaign on his behalf, he was terminated, even though the city’s legal team admitted he had not engaged in illegal discrimination. With the help of Alliance Defending Freedom, Cochran sued and settled out of court for $1.2 million.<a href="#_edn15" name="_ednref15" title="">[15]</a></p>

<p>As I write, a nefarious bill is moving through the United State Congress that, among other things, effectively erases any physical distinctions between the sexes. It’s called the “Equality Act” and has already passed in the House.</p>

<p>Though federal law already prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, this bill treats sex as a psychological state of mind unrelated to biology. Consequently, males who self-identify as females cannot be denied access to female-only areas that guaranteed privacy in the past. Note the bill’s wording:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>An individual shall not be denied access to a shared facility, including a restroom, a locker room, and a dressing room, that is in accordance with the individual’s gender identity.<a href="#_edn16" name="_ednref16" title="">[16]</a></p>
</blockquote>

<p>Further, the Equality Act would actually <em>end</em> equality in women’s sports by preventing women from competing on an equal basis with other women. Biological males—normally excluded from competing against females (that’s the point of women’s sports, after all)—could not be excluded, by law, if they self-identify as females. Women will not only lose races, they’ll lose scholarships, too, as also-rans to biological males who will easily defeat them.<a href="#_edn17" name="_ednref17" title="">[17]</a></p>

<p>Worse, this act explicitly exempts itself from the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, removing any safe harbor for Christians resisting the provisions of this bill on religious grounds.</p>

<p>Since “discrimination against a married same-sex couple could be based on the sex stereotype that marriage should only be between heterosexual couples, the sexual orientation of the two individuals in the couple, or both,”<a href="#_edn18" name="_ednref18" title="">[18]</a> churches would be vulnerable to <em>criminal prosecution</em> simply for adhering faithfully to biblical teaching. That is how far down the slope we have slipped.</p>

<p>The act also prohibits “discrimination on the basis of pregnancy…or a related medical condition,” using wording that has already been interpreted by courts to include abortion. Thus, those who refuse to perform abortions could be vulnerable to punishment.<a href="#_edn19" name="_ednref19" title="">[19]</a></p>

<h2>RX</h2>

<p>At times, the tsunami of change we’re facing seems overwhelming for its force, dizzying for its speed, and chilling for its darkness. It’s easy to begin feeling helpless, but that is not our path. There is another way.</p>

<p>In September 1974, Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the Soviet Union and sent into exile. His final salvo was an essay suggesting a remedy for the common citizen, the ordinary person dwarfed by the totalitarian state. He titled it “Live Not by Lies.”</p>

<p>Most of us are not in a position to effect any immediate change in the culture at large. That does not mean we’re powerless, though, he argued. The lies that drive the system can be resisted by ordinary people being faithful to truth while living lives of simple integrity. This approach entails two things.</p>

<p>First, we refuse to be cowed by pressure to affirm falsehood. Like the noble Christians at Nini’s Deli, we stand our ground. We live consistently with our convictions, firmly holding to truth even when we can’t defend it well or make sense of it to outsiders.</p>

<p>Solzhenitsyn counseled not to say, write, affirm, or distribute anything that distorts truth. Rather, walk out of meetings where discussion is forced and truth is not allowed to be spoken.<a href="#_edn20" name="_ednref20" title="">[20]</a> Refuse to affirm what you do not believe. Just say no, but do so respectfully, even when the price for fidelity is public shaming, silencing, or canceling.</p>

<p>Second, we act. “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil,” the saying goes, “is for good men to do nothing.” Resisting takes inner courage, of course, and courage starts with small steps. It also takes a group, a family, the Body of Christ. We stand together. It takes outward virtue, too. We are careful to live with integrity in all areas of our lives.</p>

<p>Be direct but courteous in the face of opposition. If asked what your preferred pronoun is, graciously say, “I don’t have a preferred pronoun. I have a sex. I’m male [for example].” When pressured at the office to participate in “sensitivity” seminars that go against your convictions, respectfully decline. If pressed, say, “It appears you’re using your influence as my employer to get me to accept your politics. Do you think that’s a proper use of your power and authority?”</p>

<p>Be prudent, however. Carefully weigh the risks of resistance, counting the cost. Not all hills are worth dying on—but some are.</p>

<p>If we’re clever, we can leverage the culture’s own values against it. For example, when considering adopting a radical sexual education curriculum, our local school district asked (disingenuously, I think) for input from the community during their public meeting. Here is what I wrote for my wife to deliver that evening:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>We are a diverse community, and the school board values diversity. That means there are diverse understandings about controversial issues like human sexuality.</p>

<p>Traditionally, parents have been the ones to carefully inform their children about these issues at a time and in a way appropriate for their age, and within the protected environment of the family. The government—represented here by the school board—has not traditionally been allowed to interfere with educating issues so critical to family and so appropriate to private parental nurturing of their children. To do so would be to have individual family beliefs and values overridden by whatever group happened to be in power at the time.</p>

<p>No one set of personal values should be allowed to dictate the beliefs of our children in a public education system that includes such diverse groups as Muslims, and Christians, and Orthodox Jews, and Buddhists, and humanists, and atheists, and so many others.</p>

<p>Public values shared by all, on the other hand—values like honesty, kindness, truth seeking, integrity, respect, etc.—should be encouraged by all, including the schools, since they are agreed upon by all and are not controversial.</p>

<p>However, contentious and divisive personal views should not be forced upon our children. This is indoctrination and replaces the parent’s rightful role.</p>

<p>When government takes over the responsibility of informing our children’s private and personal moral values instead of the parents and individual families doing so, it is a step towards oppression and a significant and serious violation of the diversity and multicultural respect the school board stands for.</p>

<p>If any group in power gets to force their personal values on our kids, then when a different group gets power, they will be able to force their personal values on that group’s kids. Neither is consistent with diversity, tolerance, or appropriate American liberty.</p>

<p>Please, I respectfully implore you: Leave that job to the parents of the children that belong to them…and not to the state.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Until now, it’s cost us virtually nothing to be Christian in America. I am convinced those days are rapidly coming to a close. “A time of painful testing, even persecution, is coming,” Dreher warns. “Lukewarm or shallow Christians will not come through with their faith intact.”<a href="#_edn21" name="_ednref21" title="">[21]</a></p>

<p>Choosing not to live by lies can change culture over time, but that is not its immediate purpose, in my view. Its purpose is not principally pragmatic, but ethical. We live not by lies because it’s wrong before God to do so, even if it costs us.</p>

<div>&nbsp;
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%">
<div id="edn1">
<p><a href="#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title="">[1]</a> Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, <em>The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956</em>.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn2">
<p><a href="#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title="">[2]</a> Find “<a href="/w/iron-curtain-diary">Iron Curtain Diary</a>” and “<a href="/w/the-primal-heresy">The Primal Heresy</a>” at str.org.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn3">
<p><a href="#_ednref3" name="_edn3" title="">[3]</a> Rod Dreher, <em>Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents</em> (New York City: Sentinel, 2020), xi.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn4">
<p><a href="#_ednref4" name="_edn4" title="">[4]</a> Ibid, 7–8.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn5">
<p><a href="#_ednref5" name="_edn5" title="">[5]</a> William Shirer, <em>The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich</em> (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960), 247–8.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn6">
<p><a href="#_ednref6" name="_edn6" title="">[6]</a> Note the sobering documentary “The Social Dilemma,” available on Netflix.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn7">
<p><a href="#_ednref7" name="_edn7" title="">[7]</a> Dreher, 76–77.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn8">
<p><a href="#_ednref8" name="_edn8" title="">[8]</a> Ibid, 71.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn9">
<p><a href="#_ednref9" name="_edn9" title="">[9]</a> Bari Weiss, “<a href="https://www.city-journal.org/the-miseducation-of-americas-elites">The Miseducation of America’s Elites</a>,” <em>City Journal</em>, March 9, 2021.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn10">
<p><a href="#_ednref10" name="_edn10" title="">[10]</a>&nbsp;Alistair Barr, “<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303532704579479741125367618">Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich Steps Down</a>,” <em>The Wall Street Journal</em>, April 3, 2014.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn11">
<p><a href="#_ednref11" name="_edn11" title="">[11]</a> “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OJIucA3zsc">Paint the Wall Black—The Story of Nini’s Deli</a>”</p>
</div>

<div id="edn12">
<p><a href="#_ednref12" name="_edn12" title="">[12]</a> Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, <em>The Wall Street Journal</em>, “<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-wont-sell-books-framing-lgbtq-identities-as-mental-illnesses-11615511380">Amazon Won’t Sell Books Framing LGBTQ+ Identities as Mental Illnesses</a>.”</p>
</div>

<div id="edn13">
<p><a href="#_ednref13" name="_edn13" title="">[13]</a> <em>The New York Times</em>, “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/business/boeing-resignation-niel-golightly.html">Boeing Communications Chief Resigns Over 33-Year-Old Article</a>.”</p>
</div>

<div id="edn14">
<p><a href="#_ednref14" name="_edn14" title="">[14]</a> William Barr, <em>Justice News</em>, “<a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-william-p-barr-delivers-remarks-law-school-and-de-nicola-center-ethics">Remarks to the University of Notre Dame Law School</a>,” October 11, 2019.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn15">
<p><a href="#_ednref15" name="_edn15" title="">[15]</a> NBC News, “<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/fired-after-writing-anti-gay-book-ex-fire-chief-set-n921276">Fired after Writing Anti-Gay Book, Ex-Fire Chief Set to Receive $1.2M Settlement</a>,” October 17, 2018.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn16">
<p><a href="#_ednref16" name="_edn16" title="">[16]</a> <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/5/text">H.R.5</a></p>
</div>

<div id="edn17">
<p><a href="#_ednref17" name="_edn17" title="">[17]</a> See, for example, Duke Law, “<a href="https://law.duke.edu/sports/sex-sport/comparative-athletic-performance">Comparing Athletic Performances: The Best Elite Women to Boys and Men</a>.”</p>
</div>

<div id="edn18">
<p><a href="#_ednref18" name="_edn18" title="">[18]</a> Ibid.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn19">
<p><a href="#_ednref19" name="_edn19" title="">[19]</a>&nbsp;Melanie Israel, “<a href="https://www.heritage.org/life/commentary/equality-act-trojan-horse-abortion-lobby-and-more">Equality Act Is a Trojan Horse for Abortion Lobby and More</a>.”</p>
</div>

<div id="edn20">
<p><a href="#_ednref20" name="_edn20" title="">[20]</a> Dreher, 18.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn21">
<p><a href="#_ednref21" name="_edn21" title="">[21]</a> Ibid, 160.</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>

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title: The Claim about Homosexuality in the Film 1946 Is Irrelevant
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 05/04/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/the-claim-about-homosexuality-in-the-film-1946-is-irrelevant
content:
            <div> 
		<p>An upcoming documentary <a href="https://www.1946themovie.com/">film</a> claims the RSV translators of the Bible wrongly inserted the word “homosexuals” in a New Testament passage back in 1946. The film, titled <em>1946: The Mistranslation that Shifted a Culture</em>, tells the tale of how a 21-year-old seminary student wrote a letter to the translation team to alert them of the alleged error. Although the RSV translators ended up changing the translation in 1971, it was apparently too late. The film claims that subsequent English translations followed the RSV’s lead and wrongly used the word “homosexuals,” which led to decades of mistreatment of the LGBTQ community.</p>

<p>The good news is that it’s easy to spot the fallacies in this film. The bad news is that many people won’t.</p>

<p>Though the film has not been released, I’ve watched the trailers, read the film’s website, and have closely followed the news of its development. I admit that my assessment is limited to the aforementioned information, but some of the central claims of the film appear evident based on what they’ve made available on the website.</p>

<p>If you watch the trailer and the other videos on the film’s website, you get the sense the film contains all the ingredients to satisfy today’s theological conspiracy theorists, much like Dan Brown’s <em>The DaVinci Code </em>did when it came out. In <em>1946</em>, you have old, white men deciding what the Bible says. Scripture has been adulterated. There’s a false theological narrative that’s been wrongly imposed on an unsuspecting church population. You have a young seminary student who (in 1959) confronts the authority of an entire Bible translation team, thereby speaking truth to power. Finally, there are the noble and honest researchers who travel to Yale University to scour 90 boxes of notes and discover clues that reveal the truth. After three days, they find the letter the seminary student wrote. It’s signed by “David S.” Who’s that? Digging deeper, they discover his last name. Guess what? He’s still alive, and they even interview him in the film!</p>

<p>All the excitement generated by the trailer, however, is unwarranted. Even if film’s claims are true, it doesn’t matter. The entire documentary is a <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/non%20sequitur">non sequitur</a>. Nothing follows from the fact that a seminary student called out the RSV translation team. There are two reasons why.</p>

<p><strong>First, the Greek word in question <em>does</em> appropriately condemn homosexual sex. </strong>One of the central claims of the film centers around the Greek word <em>arsenokoitai</em> in 1 Corinthians 6:9. Don’t be distracted by the film’s big hubbub about a 21-year-old seminary student’s corrective letter 62 years ago. Whether his rebuke was right or wrong is irrelevant. What matters is what <em>today’s</em> <em>best scholarship</em> says about the Greek word.</p>

<p>Pro-gay theology advocates, like the ones who created this film, love to point out that Paul invented a new Greek word (<em>arsenokoitai</em>) in 1 Corinthians 6:9. Since there are no instances of that word being used in Greek literature elsewhere, they often call into question any translation that implicates homosexuals. There are, however, at least two reasons why translators have chosen “homosexuals” (or something equivalent) for the English rendering.</p>

<p>One reason is that the word <em>arsenokoitai</em> is formed by combining two Greek words, <em>arsen</em>, meaning “male,” and <em>koite</em>, meaning “lying.” <em>Arsenokoitai </em>literally means “men who lie with a male.” It’s not surprising that the most prominent English translation today—the NIV (2011 revision)—translates the Greek as “men who have sex with men.” Since such behavior is consistent with what male homosexuals do, it’s not a stretch to see why many translation teams (not just the 1946 RSV) chose to render the Greek word as “homosexuals.” Personally, I don’t care for the translation “homosexuals,” but instead prefer the more literal rendering of “men who lie with a male.”</p>

<p>It’s also worth noting that ancient Jews used the Hebrew phrase <em>mishkav zakar</em>, which means “lying with a male,” to describe male-to-male sexual contact. Therefore, having a Jew invent the Greek term <em>arsenokoitai </em>follows the same pattern of condemning homosexual behavior by referring to the euphemism “men who lie with a male.”</p>

<p>But there’s a second reason that solidifies this translation. The Greek words <em>arsen </em>and<em> koite</em> appear together in two Greek Old Testament (<a href="https://www.septuagint.bible/">Septuagint</a>) verses:</p>

<p style="padding-left: 40px;"><em>kai meta <strong>arsen</strong>os ou koimethese <strong>koite</strong>n gynaikos bdelygma</em></p>

<p style="padding-left: 40px;"><em>kai hos an koimethe meta <strong>arsen</strong>os <strong>koite</strong>n gynaikos bdelygma…</em></p>

<p>These sentences are <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Lev+18%3A22&amp;version=NASB1995">Leviticus 18:22</a> and <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Lev+20%3A13&amp;version=NASB1995">20:13</a>—the very two verses in the Mosaic Law that condemn homosexual behavior. In other words, Paul invents a new Greek word that literally means “men who lie with a male,” and the two component words that are used to create this new word are found together in the two Mosaic prohibitions of homosexuality.</p>

<p>That’s why modern translation teams (composed of expert scholars, not 21-year-old seminary students) have rendered the Greek word as “homosexuals” (NASB, ESV), “men who have sex with men” (NIV, CSB), “practice homosexuality” (NLT, HCSB), or “sodomites” (NRSV). It’s also why the film’s claim about a seminary student’s corrective letter doesn’t matter. Maybe the RSV translators were right. Maybe they were wrong. Who cares? What matters is what today’s best scholarship reveals about the meaning of <em>arsenokoitai</em>. We know the Greek word is referencing the sexual behavior of homosexuals. This, however, is not the only reason the film’s claim is irrelevant.</p>

<p><strong>Second, there are many other passages in Scripture that corroborate the Bible’s prohibition of homosexual sex</strong>. Even if it were true that the 1 Corinthians passage was poorly translated, it still wouldn’t mean that homosexual sex was biblically permitted, which is what the filmmakers want you to eventually believe. There are several passages in Scripture that rule out homosexual sex or condemn it specifically.</p>

<p>For example, in <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+19%3A4-6&amp;version=NASB1995">Matthew 19:4–6</a>, <a href="https://www.str.org/w/jesus-didn-t-say-anything-about-homosexuality">Jesus teaches</a> that marriage is about one man, with one woman, becoming one flesh, for one lifetime. That alone rules out homosexual sex since he’s quoting the Genesis account of creation, which presupposes male-female sex and marriage. Furthermore, Jesus specifically condemns <em>porneia</em> (“sexual immorality”) in <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+7%3A21&amp;version=NASB">Mark 7:21</a>—a Greek word his Jewish listeners would have understood to mean the prohibited sexual behaviors of Leviticus—one of which was homosexual sex.</p>

<p>Not only is <a href="https://www.str.org/w/marriage-doctrine-alone-disqualifies-pro-gay-theology">homosexual sex ruled out by the Bible’s teaching on sex and marriage</a>, but there are also multiple passages that specifically prohibit homosexual sex. <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Lev+18%3A22&amp;version=NASB1995">Leviticus 18:22</a>, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Lev+20%3A13&amp;version=NASB1995">20:13</a>, and <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=rom+1%3A26-27&amp;version=NASB1995">Romans 1:26–27</a> are just a few. In other words, the Bible <em>indirectly</em> rules out homosexual sex by virtue of its teaching on sex and marriage and <em>directly</em> prohibits homosexual sex by citing it as sin.</p>

<p>This is why the film is a non sequitur. It doesn’t matter that a seminary student offered the RSV translation team a corrective. The translators could have been correct or incorrect. Either way, we can look at the Greek text (as legions of scholars have since 1946) and determine the correct meaning of <em>arsenokoitai</em>. But even if it <em>was</em> mistakenly translated, it wouldn’t have any impact on the Bible’s teaching on homosexual sex since the Mosaic Law, the apostle Paul, and Jesus himself taught that homosexual sex is a prohibited behavior.</p>

<p>Despite Scripture’s clear teaching, I’m afraid many people will be misled by this film. It’s ironic that the trailer quotes the 21-year-old seminary student warning the RSV translators, “Misinformed and misguided people may use the RSV translation of 1 Corinthians 6:9–10 as a sacred weapon.” The real problem is that this film will misguide and misinform people by casting doubt on the univocal voice of Scripture and 2,000 years of church teaching on the matters of sex, marriage, and homosexuality.</p>

<p>Scripture warned us that a day will come when those who profess the name of Christ will reject the teaching of Christ. It even explains <em>why</em> they’ll make films like <em>1946</em>. Prior to his execution, Paul warned his protégé, Timothy, that a “time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths” (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Timothy+4%3A3-4&amp;version=NASB1995">2 Tim. 4:3–4</a>). Same-sex attraction is the desire, the filmmakers are the teachers, and Scripture’s teaching on sexuality is the sound doctrine they’re unwilling to endure. This film will tickle their ears, turn many more away from the truth, and perpetuate the <a href="https://www.str.org/w/a-reformation-the-church-doesn-t-need-part-1">myth of pro-gay theology</a>.</p>

<p>That’s why it’s important to <a href="https://www.str.org/w/inoculate-don-t-isolate">inoculate</a> believers against the false claims of this film. That way, when Christians come across them, they won’t be caught off guard. Believers need to know and understand the claims of this film (and why they’re wrong) <em>before </em>they come across them in conversation.</p>

<p>Look, I get it. Nobody wants the Bible—God’s word—to rebuke their behavior. I certainly don’t. I prefer my immoral thoughts and deeds to be condoned, not condemned. But when we find our lives at odds with God’s will, the solution is not to change his words or their meaning. It’s to change our life, no matter how significant the change. Jesus said that if we want to be his disciples, we have to deny ourselves, pick up our cross, and follow him (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+16%3A24&amp;version=NASB1995">Matt. 16:24</a>). The cross represented Jesus giving up his life. We’re called to do the same. No matter what, following Jesus will costs us, but he promises <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+14%3A1-3&amp;version=NASB">it’s worth it</a>.</p>
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title: Instinct Is Man’s New Moral Compass
topic: Other Worldviews
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 05/06/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/instinct-is-man-s-new-moral-compass
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Historically, if you were lost and needed to head north, you had a reliable tool at your disposal: a compass. Thanks to the magnetic field of the earth, the rotating arrow on a compass will always point north. It’s an excellent device that provides an external reference that helps you know which way to go.</p>

<p>Human males, however, have been notoriously stubborn and have been known to eschew such tried-and-true devices when hiking or guiding their families on road trips. “I don’t need directions,” they arrogantly declare. “I know where I’m going.” Such pronouncements often result in wasted time. A man’s internal sense of direction is rarely as reliable as an external device.</p>

<p>Sadly, such rejection of objective and unbiased reality is the new norm. I’m sure you have noticed it’s become vogue among 21st-century Westerners to declare a new identity (e.g., “I’m a transgender female”), a new spiritual direction (e.g., “I’m no longer Christian”), or a new sexual ethic (e.g., “I’m no longer saving myself for marriage”). Such pronouncements are often followed by a statement akin to “I’m being true to who I am inside.” In other words, they are aligning themselves with their internal sense of what they believe is true.</p>

<p>Many people no longer look to an external, objective reference. It doesn’t matter what their physical body “says.” It’s irrelevant whether Christianity is true in an objective sense. An external standard of sexual morality? Ridiculous! What’s right and wrong is up to you. Just follow your own truth found inside yourself.</p>

<p>Carl Trueman, in his book <a href="https://store.str.org/product-p/bk484.htm" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><em>The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self</em></a><em>¸</em> chronicles how our culture came to think this way. We no longer align our thinking or identity with tried-and-true references like our body, knowledge (defined as justified true belief), or objective standards of right and wrong. The “modern self” gives unprecedented and total authority to our inner voice and feelings. If a man feels like a woman on the inside, then he <em>is </em>a woman. How we feel on the inside determines our reality on the outside.</p>

<p>Sadly, modern thinking approaches decisions in a similar way. Western culture has shed what it perceives to be the shackles of the Christian worldview. This includes jettisoning the distinctly Judeo-Christian notion that humans are unique creatures made in the image of God. Without that doctrine, humans are merely animals.</p>

<p>Honestly, I’m not surprised by this turn of events. It’s consistent with the way an animal would behave. Notice how a hippopotamus doesn’t consider an outside moral standard. Its decisions are guided by its own internal sense of behavior: instinct. It will—without hesitation—kill an impala to eat. It will tear a baby hippo apart if it belongs to a rival bull. External standards of right and wrong don’t exist to a hippopotamus. Animals are guided only by their internal “voice.”</p>

<p>We shouldn’t be surprised, then, when human behavior is based upon the same guide as an animal—on instinct. We’re simply following our own internal voice. Like the hippopotamus, our inside urges are given total authority, and we create an external reality that matches how we feel. We behave like animals because we are animals.</p>

<p>It’s a sad reality, but it’s the logical progression of a culture that rejects a biblical anthropology.</p>

<p>That’s why we Christians can’t adopt this secular thinking. Our worldview is diametrically opposed to it. We shouldn’t give our inner feelings total authority because our Maker tells us that our heart is “more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick” (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=jer+17%3A9&amp;version=NASB1995" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Jer. 17:9</a>), and that “from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts” (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=mark+7%3A21&amp;version=NASB1995" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Mark 7:21</a>). Our inner voice is not a reliable guide. Instead, we’ve been given an external moral compass so we can know which way is true north.</p>
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title: Music, Beauty, and Narnia
topic: Arts and Culture
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 05/11/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/music-beauty-and-narnia
content:
            <div> 
		<p>After a year of not being able to participate in live music due to COVID restrictions, I was moved by this hour-long discussion from the <a href="http://www.cslewis.org/">C.S. Lewis Foundation</a> about music and beauty with composer <a href="https://www.jacredford.com/Profile/Biography.html">J.A.C. Redford</a> (you have surely seen movies he has composed and arranged for). He’s a talented and thoughtful Christian (<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Welcome-All-Wonders-Composers-Journey/dp/0801011205/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&amp;keywords=welcome+all+wonders+redford&amp;qid=1619287400&amp;s=digital-text&amp;sr=1-1">his book</a> tells the story of his leaving Mormonism for Christianity) and a joy to listen to.</p>

<p>In the first half of the discussion, he talks about what he found when he studied all the instances where music appears in the Chronicles of Narnia books, then he goes on to discuss his choral music, working as a film composer in Hollywood, and more during the Q&amp;A.</p>

<p>If you’re a musician, you’ll particularly appreciate this, but even if you aren’t, you’ll be uplifted by its beauty. It’s so easy to get caught up in the challenges of our particular time, so take a moment to step out of that and experience the glory of God through beauty.</p>

<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kK9BrYOAFQ8" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></p>
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title: School Is Out, so What Is Next?
topic: Tactics and Tools
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 05/20/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/school-is-out-so-what-is-next-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Congratulations, student! You finished your exams. Summer is waiting. Time to let loose, binge watch your favorite television shows, or pull a few all-nighters playing some first-person shooters. Right?</p>

<p>Wrong! Summer break doesn’t mean you stop learning. It’s fine to celebrate your accomplishment, but now is not the time to relax and put your feet up. There is a war raging all around us. It’s not being fought with guns, tanks, and missiles. It’s a spiritual battle (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+cor+10%3A3-5&amp;version=NASB1995">2 Cor. 10:3–5</a>). There hasn’t been a more pressing time to be vigilant about the changing culture and its attitude towards faithful followers of Jesus.</p>

<p>Besides, education doesn’t stop when school ends. Learning is a lifelong process. Here are three organizations that are ready to help you continue to learn so you are fully equipped to charge through the challenges this world will throw at you (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+tim+3%3A14-17&amp;version=NASB1995">2 Tim. 3:14–17</a>).</p>

<p><a href="https://www.str.org/">Stand to Reason</a>: That’s right, I’m plugging what we at Stand to Reason have been doing for decades and are now continuing to do. Of course, we have an extensive website with hundreds of <a href="https://www.str.org/articles">articles</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK9clHWD7H4HxFlr2KreJ2w">videos</a>, and <a href="https://www.str.org/podcasts">podcasts</a>. What I’m excited about, though, is our new <a href="https://training.str.org/">STR U,</a> which contains online training classes on topics like tactics, relativism, homosexuality, and the Bible.</p>

<p><a href="https://www.summit.org/">Summit Ministries</a>: Summit has an excellent two-week summer <a href="https://www.summit.org/programs/student-conferences/dates/">worldview and apologetics camp</a>. Many of the best speakers and trainers from across the country fly in to teach on worldviews, abortion, Marxism, intelligent design, homosexuality, marriage, porn, Islam, technology, evil, doubt, mental health, history, and much more. If you’re looking for a longer experience, then you should consider their <a href="https://www.summit.org/programs/summit-semester/">Summit Semester program</a> that lasts for three months.</p>

<p><a href="https://www.impact360institute.org/">Impact 360 Institute</a>: They offer multiple programs for different age groups and time frames. There is a one-week discipleship and leadership program for high school students called <a href="https://www.impact360institute.org/propel/">Propel</a>. They also have a two-week worldview and apologetics program for high school students called <a href="https://www.impact360institute.org/immersion/">Immersion</a>. I’ve taught at Immersion for years, and it’s an innovative program that incorporates immersive outreach experiences at a mosque and university campus. Those who are looking for a gap-year experience should consider their <a href="https://www.impact360institute.org/fellows/">Fellows</a> program.</p>

<p>Bottom line is that your education should not stop now. Besides, a Christian graduates when he enters Heaven, finishes the race, and is crowned with righteousness (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+tim+4%3A7-8&amp;version=NASB1995">2 Tim. 4:7–8</a>). In the meantime, consider the many excellent—and I do mean <em>excellent</em>—options to continue your lifelong learning journey.</p>
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title: Making Sense of Unanswered Prayer
topic: Theology
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 05/27/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/making-sense-of-unanswered-prayer
content:
            <div> 
		<p>I was recently asked, “Why do you think some prayers are unanswered despite their heartfelt, sincere, and unselfish motives?” (Greg and I responded to this on the #STRask podcast <a href="https://www.str.org/w/-strask-march-25-2021">here</a>.)</p>

<p>I don’t think we can know why God answers some particular prayers the way we want and not others, though we <em>can</em> know the two main goals God is working towards in and through our lives regardless of how he answers:</p>

<p class="indent" style="margin-left: 40px;"><strong>His glory</strong><strong>:</strong> Sometimes God reveals his glory by answering our prayers the way we hoped, but sometimes he reveals his glory through our learning to depend on him as we experience his faithfulness and trustworthiness through an unchanging trial (see <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+cor+1%3A8-9&amp;version=NASB">2 Cor. 1:8–9</a>, for example). He uses our life situations to make himself known to us and to the world, to draw others to himself, etc. No matter how he responds to our prayer, we can be confident he is working to reveal his glory more fully to us. As Ephesians says, his goal is to show us the riches of his grace for eternity (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=eph+2%3A4-7&amp;version=NASB">2:4–7</a>), to the praise of his glory (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=eph+1%3A5-6&amp;version=NASB">1:6</a>).</p>

<p class="indent" style="margin-left: 40px;"><strong>Our good</strong><strong>:</strong> Romans 8:28 makes it clear God is working all things for our good, but <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=rom+8%3A28-29&amp;version=NASB">8:29</a> defines exactly what that good is: becoming like Christ. (And of course, our seeing more of his glory also works for our good!)</p>

<p>Since we know he has promised to reveal himself in such a way that we will enjoy the riches of his grace for eternity, and he has also promised to work everything for our good (i.e., to fulfill his purpose for us, which is to make us like Christ), we <em>know</em> that every answer to every prayer is working towards those two goals, even if we can’t see how his answer is accomplishing those things.</p>

<p>In light of those promised goals, I can think of two reasons why his responses to our prayers might seem perplexing to us at times:</p>

<p class="indent" style="margin-left: 40px;"><strong>First, we might not have enough knowledge to evaluate his response to our prayer.</strong> Since he’s omniscient, he knows much better than we do how to accomplish his two great goals, so his answers to our prayers could look very different from our expectations (which we developed with very limited knowledge).</p>

<p class="indent" style="margin-left: 40px;"><strong>Second, we might have different, lesser goals in mind when we pray</strong> (for example, our comfort, or even the easing of our distress, when such things are requested in situations where they will not actually serve God’s two great goals for us). If we evaluate God’s answers in light of our own, lesser goals, his answers won’t make sense because he has different, greater goals for us than we have for ourselves.</p>

<p>The above is an intellectual response to the question, but of course, an intellectual understanding of unanswered prayer and comfort in the midst of it are two different things. Sometimes grief just has to be gone through, and the best we can do is try to bear up under it in a way that brings us closer to God rather than pushes us away from him. When it comes to unanswered prayer, the only thing that can sustain us is trust in God’s sovereignty, goodness, and specific love for each of us:</p>

<p class="indent" style="margin-left: 40px;"><strong>God’s sovereignty:</strong> We need to trust in his sovereignty so we can rest in the knowledge that he has a reason for not giving us what we’ve asked for. We can only know there’s a reason for our suffering if we also know he <em>could</em> change our situation but isn’t—that our lives are not out of his control, filled with <em>meaningless</em> pain. (This is why God answers Job’s distress with a statement of his sovereignty.)</p>

<p class="indent" style="margin-left: 40px;"><strong>God’s goodness and specific love:</strong> We need to trust in his goodness and his love for each of us as his specific son or daughter so that we know there is not only a <em>purpose</em>, but a <em>good</em> purpose behind our situation—that he hasn’t forgotten us, that he truly loves us and wants the best for us, and that we’re not merely pawns in his plans.</p>

<p>That kind of trust in both his sovereignty and love for us as specific individuals (not just the world in general) is difficult to maintain in the midst of grief…so difficult. The only way to build up that trust is to think as much and as well as we can about who God is and what Christ has done for each of us. And we can do that by reading both the Bible and other good books that will help us comprehend the reality of God���s love as taught in the Bible. Here are three that have made a difference to me:</p>

<ul>
	<li><em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Gentle-Lowly-Christ-Sinners-Sufferers/dp/1433566133/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=gentle+and+lowly&amp;qid=1615344935&amp;s=books&amp;sr=1-1">Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers</a></em> – This was my favorite book I read last year. The chapters are short and very readable, but it took me a while to get through the whole thing because there was so much to think about and absorb.</li>
	<li><em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Delighting-Trinity-Introduction-Christian-Faith/dp/0830839836/ref=sr_1_1?crid=OZ9Q7RFYOYRC&amp;dchild=1&amp;keywords=delighting+in+the+trinity+michael+reeves&amp;qid=1615344864&amp;s=books&amp;sprefix=delighting+in+the+,aps,229&amp;sr=1-1">Delighting in the Trinity</a></em> – This is also very readable. The first time I read this, the intensity of the truth of God’s love would actually cause me to turn away from the book at times because&nbsp;it was too much even to take in.</li>
	<li><em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Rejoicing-Christ-Michael-Reeves/dp/0830840222/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1JNFEO3CO3GPG&amp;dchild=1&amp;keywords=rejoicing+in+christ+by+michael+reeves&amp;qid=1615345033&amp;s=books&amp;sprefix=rejoicing,stripbooks,216&amp;sr=1-1">Rejoicing in Christ</a></em> – This is by the same author as the previous book and does a wonderful job of revealing Christ to the reader.</li>
</ul>

<p>This is the only path to comfort that I see when prayers go seemingly unanswered—an increased trust in God’s good sovereignty and love. All the books above are about his love since I think that’s the more difficult truth for our hearts to comprehend. In terms of God’s <em>sovereignty</em> over suffering, the book I would recommend is <em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/If-God-Good-Faith-Suffering/dp/1601425791/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1TTGLGXGCHET3&amp;keywords=if+god+is+good+randy+alcorn&amp;qid=1615345231&amp;s=books&amp;sprefix=if+god+is+good,stripbooks,218&amp;sr=1-1">If God Is Good: Faith in the Midst of Suffering and Evil</a></em> by Randy Alcorn, a book that helped me grasp—in my heart as well as my mind—the truth that evil and suffering are not stronger than God, no matter how much it might feel otherwise to us. The sheer number of stories in that book where God worked through suffering—not just in spite of it, but <em>through </em>it—is a testimony to the truth of God’s sovereignty over evil, and it changed me.</p>

<p>I honestly think the two paragraphs below are the most important I’ve ever written (see the full post here: <a href="https://www.str.org/w/what-easter-says-to-those-who-are-suffering#.XIxkbBNKijQ">What Easter Says to Those Who Are Suffering</a>), and they contain the ideas I finally grasped after reading Alcorn’s book:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>With the cross and resurrection at its core, Christianity need never deny the reality of evil and suffering because Jesus has proven Himself to be greater than all of it. He didn’t just overcome it, He overcame <em>through</em> it. <em>The cross was the very means by which He secured joy:</em> “[F]or the joy set before Him [He] endured the cross, despising the shame” (Hebrews 12:2). In this same way, all evil will be swallowed up. We will, in our resurrection, see that <em>what we suffered was the means by which we gained joy</em>, and the “<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Corinthians+4%3A17-18&amp;version=NASB">eternal weight of glory</a>” produced by our affliction will turn the suffering we experienced into a drop of dye lost in an ocean.</p>

<p>Sometimes we’re tempted to think evil is stronger than God, but <em>when we understand that every attempt evil makes to harm us is working <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=romans+8%3A28-29&amp;version=NASB">for our good</a>, we’ll see that all of evil’s weapons have been removed from it; </em>there is nothing left it can use against us. [Emphasis added.]</p>
</blockquote>

<p>We have been chosen and called by God so that he can shower each of us with the “surpassing riches of his grace” for eternity, all to his glory. Not one of his children is forgotten or passed over. He governs each of our lives carefully and lovingly as our Father. Since we can’t always see the specifics of what he’s doing, we have to live by faith—that is, <em>trust</em> in the things we can’t yet see, a trust that’s based on everything we know to be true about him.</p>

<p>And how can we know what’s true about him? We must learn. And here we come to the bottom line: To persevere through unanswered prayer, study and pray in order to gain the kind of deep knowledge of God’s reality and character that will lead to an unassailable trust in his sovereignty and love for you. This is the only way forward through perplexing pain and seemingly-unanswered prayers.</p>
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title: Christianity Is the Best Explanation for Reality
topic: Philosophy
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 06/02/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/christianity-is-the-best-explanation-for-reality
content:
            <div> 
		<p>If someone asked you how you know Christianity is true, how would you answer them? Would you appeal to your transformed life, the witness of miracles, or apologetic arguments?</p>

<p>C.S. Lewis once provided his own explanation. In the closing line of a paper to Oxford’s Socratic Club, he wrote, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” Lewis believed Christianity provides a framework for understanding many commonsense ideas that people in our society affirm.</p>

<p>I agree. If you listen carefully to what people claim are the powerful truths they live by, you’ll recognize that Christianity is the only worldview that can justify all of them. Consider the following claims about reality and how not every belief system can account for them.</p>

<p><strong>The universe began to exist</strong>: Prior to modern science, people believed the universe was eternal. That idea has been rejected by Big Bang cosmology, the second law of thermodynamics, and the red shift. Today, it is believed that the universe began at a finite time in the past. This fact is also accounted for by the Christian worldview. The <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=genesis+1%3A1&amp;version=NASB1995">very first verse of the Bible</a> says that “God created the heavens and earth,” a view that is consistent with and explains the way reality is—a universe with a beginning.</p>

<p><strong>Morals are real: </strong>People have an intuitive sense of right and wrong. Although most people would claim that morals are relative to each person, there are some that seem to apply to all people at all times: rape is wrong, assaulting an elderly woman is wrong, and torturing little babies for fun is wrong. What ideological system can explain the existence of objective rules (universally true for everyone)? Christianity teaches that God exists and he provides an objective standard of morality.</p>

<p><strong>Human beings are valuable</strong>: Most people believe (or at least act like) human beings are valuable over and above animals. We mourn the death of our child more than that of our cat. What worldview makes sense of what many people intuitively believe? Christianity makes sense of that reality. It teaches that human beings are made in the image of God (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=gen+1%3A26&amp;version=NASB1995">Gen. 1:26</a>) and, therefore, have value.</p>

<p><strong>All humans are equal</strong>: Western society is vigorously opposed to racism. Every person is equally valuable no matter their color, ethnicity, or country of origin. What accounts for equal value? There’s no characteristic that every person shares equally. Some people are taller, some are smarter, and some have more melanin in their skin. Every characteristic comes in degrees, negating the possibility of their grounding human equality. The Christian worldview teaches that every human being is made in the image of God, a characteristic that is not a degreed property. You either have it or you don’t. That explains why Martin Luther King, Jr. could justify his case for the civil rights of African Americans—he was a Baptist pastor and believed in the image of God.</p>

<p><strong>Animals are valuable</strong>: Despite some overzealous animal rights groups like PETA, many people consider caring for animals to be a noble cause. There’s no need to torture or kill animals unnecessarily. Again, the Christian worldview provides justification to care for animals. Though animals are not made in the image of God, they are still created by God. After making the sea and land creatures, he declared them “good” (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1%3A20-25&amp;version=NASB1995">Gen. 1:20–25</a>).</p>

<p><strong>Caring for the environment is a worthy cause</strong>: Many people are concerned about climate change, deforestation, and the dumping of toxins in our rivers, lakes, and seas. But why <em>should </em>we be concerned? The Christian worldview has an answer. God made the earth, and we are commanded to be good stewards of his creation.</p>

<p><strong>People feel guilty</strong>: Though I haven’t met every person who is reading this, there is something that I know is true of you. There are moments in your life when you feel guilty. You know you’ve broken a behavioral standard. In other words, you <em>feel</em> guilty because you <em>are</em> guilty. That’s why being forgiven by someone you’ve wronged is burden-lifting. These feelings are anticipated and accounted for by Christianity. Every person has broken God’s moral laws, and our conscience reminds us of that. Feeling guilty, though, is not where God wants you to remain. He’s offered a pardon so you can be forgiven and feel free of guilt’s burden.</p>

<p>Of course, the message of guilt and forgiveness is at the core of Jesus’ message. What we’ve also seen is that many commonsense beliefs that people share about humanity, animals, and creation are also accounted for by Christianity.</p>

<p>People with other worldviews might explain a few of these beliefs. A naturalist, for example, might posit a beginning to the universe, but he could hardly account for human value, human equality, objective morality, or even why we should care for the environment. A pantheist might be able to account for caring for creation or animals, but not a finite universe or human equality. Also, other worldviews like postmodernism, the New Age, nihilism, and existentialism fail to explain some of these claims about reality. Only Christianity accounts for these basic and common ideas. That is one reason why we can know Christianity is true—it explains reality.</p>
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title: Why Pronouns Matter…a Lot
topic: Christian Living
author: Greg Koukl
date: 06/01/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/why-pronouns-matter%E2%80%A6a-lot
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Pronouns matter. I realize they seem like inconsequential little things—him, her, he, she. No big deal. Why don’t we just play along with “preferred pronouns” so everyone can get along? No hassle.</p>

<p>If pronouns really were “inconsequential little things,” then why has so much ink been spilt—and, in some cases, livelihoods lost—for not getting them right? Because getting particular <em>pronouns</em> right means getting a particular <em>narrative</em> right.</p>

<p>Here is what is at stake with those simple little words. We are being besieged by a worldview that is completely foreign to Jesus’ view of reality. According to this view, reality is not “out there” in God’s world, but “in here” in the internal world of feelings and personal beliefs.</p>

<p>This outside/inside distinction is central to relativism—the primal heresy, mankind’s first sin in the Garden. It’s the error that started all other errors, and it reigns in the hearts of men who continue to “suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Rom. 1:18). It’s a rebellion against God’s obvious truth and simple common sense.</p>

<p>Obvious truth: Sex is binary. God made it clear in the beginning. “Male and female He created them” (Gen. 1:27). Common sense: God made two sexes—genders, if you will (they’re synonyms)—for a reason. It’s how humans can “be fruitful and multiply.”</p>

<p>Now, though, we are pressured to reject God’s truth and common sense and to affirm a false narrative of reality. Why? Because (they say) it’s the only way to be nice. One mom told us her homeschool charter required all employees to include their “preferred pronouns” in all their correspondence. The guideline stated:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Choosing to ignore the pronouns someone has stated that they go by could imply the oppressive notion that intersex, transgender, non-binary, and gender nonconforming people do not or should not exist.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>This claim is ridiculous in the extreme. Nevertheless, there it is. On the pretext of being nice, the world has made pronouns the skirmish line in a broader battle of worldviews: Who defines reality, God or each one of us? This demand is not about being nice; it’s about enforcing a foreign worldview.</p>

<p>Paul warned, “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men…rather than according to Christ” (Col. 2:8). The deceptions he cautioned against were “empty”—hollow, vacuous, void of truth. This pronoun ploy is based on one of those empty deceptions.</p>

<p>So, what do we do? How do we resist the lie, live the truth, and still be nice? We take a cue from Christ and distinguish the movement from the individual.</p>

<p>John said Jesus was “full of grace and truth” (Jn. 1:14). Christ’s character helps us navigate the gender minefield. We protect people’s feelings (“grace”)—within reason—but we reject the narrative (“truth”). Three separate circumstances require three different responses.</p>

<p>First, I think we should call people by the names they choose for themselves. Names are different from pronouns since names are personal preferences by nature. Pronouns, though, refer to sex—a fixed feature of reality, not a preference. (With your own children, though, you may insist on a name consistent with their biology.)</p>

<p>Second, if you’re required to post your preferred pronoun, do not simply report your accurate gender. That reinforces the lie that pronouns reflect mere personal preference. Instead, post this: “I don’t have a preferred pronoun. I have a sex. I’m male [for example].”</p>

<p>This characterization is completely self-reflective. It says nothing about anyone but you. In principle, at least, it should not be a problem. You were asked for a self-assessment. You gave it. End of issue. Refuse to participate in the lie.</p>

<p>Third, if you’re asked to use preferred pronouns when speaking of others, then graciously, but firmly, refuse. Tell them this is not your view, so it would be dishonest and inauthentic to act like it was. Just say no. Hold your ground.</p>

<p>In most cases, pronouns are <em>third</em> person references used to indicate people <em>not present</em>, so their feelings are not at stake. Arm-twisting at this point is <em>political</em>, not ethical. You could use students’ last names for third person reference if you like, but don’t yield to pressure to adopt pronoun use that reflects a peculiar, controversial, and divisive political view that you do not hold. That’s lying.</p>

<p>Our goal here is modest. We do not demand others abandon <em>their</em> views. We only ask that we be allowed to keep <em>our</em> views. In the long run, we may not be able to change culture, but we can always keep culture from changing us.</p>
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title: How the Bad News of Cancel Culture Could Help People Hear the Good News of the Gospel
topic: Other Worldviews
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 06/10/2021
source:
https://www.str.org/w/how-the-bad-news-of-cancel-culture-could-help-people-hear-the-good-news-of-the-gospel

content:
            <div> 
		<p>As you’re trying to make sense of what’s happening in our culture and how we should respond as Christians, I highly recommend Thaddeus Williams’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Confronting-Injustice-without-Compromising-Truth/dp/0310119480/ref=sr_1_1?crid=UFHZG68VBS12&amp;keywords=confronting+injustice+without+compromising+truth&amp;qid=1623355139&amp;s=books&amp;sprefix=confronting+injust%2Caps%2C219&amp;sr=1-1"><em>Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth: 12 Questions Christians Should Ask About Social Justice</em></a>. In the book, Williams contrasts biblical ideas of justice, which he calls “Social Justice A,” with the current ideas of justice, referred to as “Social Justice B” (see <a href="https://www.challies.com/book-reviews/confronting-injustice-without-compromising-truth-12-questions-christians-should-ask-about-social-justice/">this review by Tim Challies</a> for more details).</p>

<p>Here is one contrast that particularly caught my attention:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Social Justice B offers no grace, no forgiveness, no open doors to paradise. Why? Because it ignores the most important distinction there is—the Creator-creature distinction….</p>

<p>What happens if we erase the Creator-creature distinction? Instead of standing before a quick-to-forgive Creator, we stand before our fellow creatures. Instead of having a God willing to take the nails in our place, we face a quick-to-anger mob, ready to drive digital nails to crucify us for every sin against its ever-evolving standards of righteousness.</p>

<p><em>What we are slowly realizing as a culture is the impossible demands of justice and our irrepressible need for justification.</em> [Emphasis added.]</p>
</blockquote>

<p>As concerned as Williams may be about “Social Justice B” ideas, he points out that this development gives Christians reasons to hope rather than to despair. Since we human beings truly <em>do</em> need justification, we should view this emerging cultural awareness as an opportunity to tell the good news to people who are now ready to hear it:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>[W]hat if, in God’s providence, the rise of Social Justice B makes this a golden moment to be alive and proclaim the gospel? Under postmodernism, recognizing any meaningful sense of guilt was extremely difficult for people. Under postmodernism, which championed moral relativism and prided itself on nonjudgmentalism, recognizing any meaningful sense of guilt was extremely difficult for people. Under the new rising cultural epoch of activism, what I have called “post-postmodernism,” we are conditioned to judge the moral shortcomings of everyone all the time. Guilt is the world we all now inhabit. The West now feels the weight of “infinite responsibility” and “infinite guilt” in a way it hasn’t in a long time.</p>

<p>God’s law also brings “infinite responsibility” and “infinite guilt.” Here is the difference. The impossibility of keeping Social Justice B’s standards is cruel. There is no redemption. No grace. No salvation. It’s a game we can’t win. The impossibility of keeping God’s standards is a mercy. It shatters our self-righteousness. In Luther’s words, “God is trying us, that by His law He may bring us to a knowledge of our impotence.” Augustine echoes, “The law was given for this purpose: to make you, being great, little; to show that you do not have in yourself the strength to attain righteousness, and for you, thus helpless, unworthy, and destitute, to flee to grace.” Yes! Flee to grace. Run to the cross. Quit doing penance before creatures, and take your infinite guilt to the infinite Creator, who alone has the authority to declare us not guilty through the death and resurrection of Jesus. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” That is the good news we must declare as our first thing to this weary generation.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Amen!</p>
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title: Criticism of Islam Is Not Islamophobia
topic: Other Worldviews
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 06/15/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/criticism-of-islam-is-not-islamophobia
content:
            <div> 
		<p>I was pleasantly surprised to hear someone make a distinction between Islamophobia and criticism of Islam. I don’t know anything about Kaveh Shahrooz (so this isn’t an endorsement of him), but <a href="https://twitter.com/i/status/1403853807319138309" rel="noopener">he explained what seems to be an obvious difference between two things</a>: “hatred or animus towards Muslim people” (which he affirmed is despicable and evil—and I agree) and “criticism of Islamic doctrine, Islamic texts, Islamic customs and practices” (which he argued should be permitted—as do I).</p>

<p>The problem with current usage of the term “Islamophobia” is that it conflates these two ideas. Anyone who presents an argument or criticism of an Islamic idea is immediately slapped with the label “Islamophobic” and, consequently, dismissed from consideration. I’ve already stated my <a href="https://www.str.org/w/the-fear-of-phobic-" rel="noopener">concerns with the term “phobic”</a> and how its incessant use detracts from healthy public discourse on important topics.</p>

<p>I routinely <a href="https://www.str.org/w/why-take-christians-to-mosques-" rel="noopener">take Christians to mosques</a>, and we often hear a Muslim leader critique our faith during their presentation. Afterwards, we offer our arguments against Islam. Guess what? We go back year after year to some of the same mosques because our engagement is civil and respectful (from both the Muslims and the Christians). We’re not being Islamophobic, and the Muslims aren’t being Christophobic (not that that’s a thing). We’re simply critiquing each other’s views while respecting each other. That, by the way, is what true tolerance is.</p>
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title: An Interview about Tactics
topic: Tactics and Tools
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 06/22/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/an-interview-about-tactics
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Greg was interviewed about <em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Tactics-10th-Anniversary-Discussing-Convictions/dp/0310101468/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=tactics&amp;qid=1624330672&amp;sr=8-1">Tactics</a></em> on a recent episode of Focus on the Family, and the video is a great way to brush up on the ideas or to introduce your friends to this material. (The transcript is available <a href="https://www.focusonthefamily.com/episodes/broadcast/sharing-your-faith-with-grace-and-purpose/">here</a>.)</p>

<p>If you want more after seeing this, try <a href="https://subsplash.com/strquickreference/media/ms/+a6fe807">the videos from our Quick-Reference App</a> or, even better, sign up for <a href="https://training.str.org/">the free course on STR U</a>. Enjoy!</p>

<p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2oDCuVj9_xg" tabindex="0" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></p>
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title: Critical Race Theory: Civil Rights Upside Down
topic: Other Worldviews
author: Greg Koukl
date: 07/01/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/critical-race-theory-civil-rights-upside-down
content:
            <div> 
		<p>The newspaper headline read, “Critical Race Theory Coming to a School Near You?” The paper was <em>The Conejo Guardian</em>,<a href="#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title="">[1]</a> the monthly publication of Conejo Valley—the quiet, diminutive basin where I make my home in Southern California, just beyond the teeth of the LA sprawl.</p>

<p>The article was a warning.</p>

<p>Critical race theory (CRT) <em>is</em> coming to a school near you—to your high schools, to your grade schools, even to your elementary schools (the universities have already been thick with CRT for years).</p>

<p>Critical race theory is coming to your public schools, and to your private schools,<a href="#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title="">[2]</a> and has even stolen into some of your Christian schools and churches.<a href="#_edn3" name="_ednref3" title="">[3]</a> And it’s coming to your workplace, too (if it hasn’t already), in the form of “inclusion” or “diversity” training.<a href="#_edn4" name="_ednref4" title="">[4]</a> And, generally, it’s not optional—in school or on the job.</p>

<p>The indoctrination rapidly penetrating all levels of society is controversial, contentious, and divisive—aggressively pitting one group of people against another. It’s also thoroughly political, with the current federal government championing CRT—and legislatively backing it—lock, stock, and barrel.<a href="#_edn5" name="_ednref5" title="">[5]</a></p>

<p>Regarding the aggressive education efforts in California (and in other parts of the country where CRT is penetrating the educational system), Anna Mussmann warns in <em>The Federalist</em>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Parents need to understand that behind the waterfall of vocabulary is a militant ideology. When kids are taught to subject all of life to “critical consciousness” in order to find the “oppressor” and the “oppressed” everywhere and at all times, they are taught that the only ultimate meaning in life is power.<a href="#_edn6" name="_ednref6" title="">[6]</a></p>
</blockquote>

<p>As with other efforts with a totalitarian impulse, disagreement is not welcome. Dissenters are frequently treated with disrespect, harassed, and bullied:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Critical race theorists want students to accept the assumption that anyone who fails to swallow these rules wholeheartedly is a tool of oppression. Ultimately, it’s a highly effective way of preventing dialogue and pitting students against students.<a href="#_edn7" name="_ednref7" title="">[7]</a></p>
</blockquote>

<p>The attraction of CRT for people of conscience is its emphasis on “social justice” as an answer to racism. But CRT isn’t your parents’ (or your grandparents’) civil rights movement.</p>

<h2>Not MLK’s Civil Rights</h2>

<p>I was a senior in high school when Martin Luther King was murdered. It’s a vivid memory for me, as are the civil rights efforts of that time. The movement was a flashpoint for change in a long, ugly, brutal chapter in the American experiment, a test to see if the noble ideals of the Founding Fathers and of the Declaration of Independence would be enjoyed, finally, by all Americans.</p>

<p>That is how Martin Luther King understood civil rights, since he referred to those documents frequently. As a preacher from a long line of preachers, he also based his stand on Scripture. In his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” he cited the Bible liberally.</p>

<p>In King’s celebrated “I Have a Dream” address delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, he envisioned a nation where people “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”</p>

<p>This famous line reflected a commonsense, liberal (in the best sense), and biblical ethical principle. The most important element uniting every human being—more significant than any differences that divide us—has nothing to do with any incidental physical characteristic. What ought to unite us is our shared and noble humanity.</p>

<p>“Now is the time,” King said, “to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.” Martin Luther King based his dream—his vision of a just America for every human being—on the reality that we were all brothers fashioned in the image of God.</p>

<p>Frederick Douglass, the eminent 19th-century black abolitionist, wrote these words to his former slave master in September 1848:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>I entertain no malice towards you personally. There is no roof under which you would be more safe than mine, and there is nothing in my house which you might need for your comfort, which I would not readily grant. Indeed, I should esteem it a privilege, to set you an example as to how mankind ought to treat each other. I am your fellow man, but not your slave.<a href="#_edn8" name="_ednref8" title="">[8]</a></p>
</blockquote>

<p>Note Douglass’s moral kinship with King. A licensed preacher, Douglass understood that the theological “solid rock” of any appeal to racial justice was that we are each other’s “fellow man,” equally precious in God’s eyes. We are also, I will add, all equally broken at the foot of the cross.</p>

<p>Keep those two things in mind—our universal intrinsic value as one race of human brothers and our universal moral guilt—as we explore the hazardous world of CRT. They are central to everything we need to know when dealing biblically not only with racism, but with all forms of human oppression. They trade on the notion that genuine justice is always grounded in truth, not in power.<a href="#_edn9" name="_ednref9" title="">[9]</a></p>

<p>King’s principal thrust during the civil rights movement of the ’50s and ’60s was undoing segregation—whether on buses (the bus boycotts and the “Freedom Riders”), at lunch counters (Greensboro, North Carolina sit-ins), in public schools (Little Rock Central High School), and in higher education (the University of Mississippi).</p>

<p>Those days are over.</p>

<p>Today’s fight against racism lacks King’s noble intention to judge people by their character. In fact, rather than <em>de-racializing</em> our country, the current effort is to <em>re-racialize</em> it. Segregation is everywhere now—in graduations, in classrooms, in clubs, in adoptions—systematically endorsed and promoted by the new anti-racism movement.</p>

<p>There’s one significant difference, though. People of color are not the ones disqualified, disenfranchised, or demonized now. Rather, the ones currently disqualified, disenfranchised, and demonized by CRT advocates are white people. And males. And “heterosexual-normative” people. And “cisgender-normative” people.<a href="#_edn10" name="_ednref10" title="">[10]</a> And, of course, Christians.<a href="#_edn11" name="_ednref11" title="">[11]</a></p>

<p>The consequences are already tragic. At the moment, racial tensions are the highest they’ve been in the 21st century and continue to intensify.</p>

<p>Ask yourself this question. Regardless of your race, or color, or national or ethnic origin, do you feel <em>more</em> comfortable amidst the ethnic diversity of your community now as a result of the events of the last 15 months, or do you feel <em>less</em> comfortable? The trend does not bode well for our communities.</p>

<p>What is going on?</p>

<h2>Word Games</h2>

<p>Some sage once observed, “When words lose their meanings, people lose their lives.” Proverbs instructs us, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.”<a href="#_edn12" name="_ednref12" title="">[12]</a> In short, words matter.</p>

<p>In <em>1984</em>, George Orwell’s 1949 classic (and oddly prescient) dystopian vision of future totalitarianism, the manipulation of language became a powerful tool of distortion and deception. Orwell called it “Newspeak” and “doublethink”—deceptive vocabulary that citizens of Oceania were socialized by peer pressure to adopt. Some refer to it as “doublespeak”—clever efforts to purposefully distort, obscure, and euphemize ideas or behaviors, masking their otherwise objectionable, unappealing, or even vile qualities. Orwell’s <em>Animal Farm</em> slogan “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” is a case in point.</p>

<p>In both works, Orwell was lampooning Soviet totalitarianism. Rod Dreher reminds us of “the Marxist habit of falsifying language, hollowing out familiar words and replacing them with a new, highly ideological meaning.”<a href="#_edn13" name="_ednref13" title="">[13]</a></p>

<p>The Third Reich did it, too. Segments of the population who were “impaired” were described in German as “<em>lebensunwertes leben</em>,”<a href="#_edn14" name="_ednref14" title="">[14]</a> literally “life unworthy of life.” Thoroughly cleansing the European continent of Jews was called the “Final Solution.”</p>

<p>There is a lesson here for us that we have not learned well, especially the younger adults in our communities: Beware deceptive political euphemisms.</p>

<p>In its current course towards totalitarianism, the Left has shown itself a master at manipulating language. “Antifa,” for example, despite its own fascistic behavior, stands for “anti-fascist.” Who could argue with that? The noble name “Black Lives Matter” makes the organization virtually unassailable regardless of its views. “Social justice” is, well, <em>justice</em>, isn’t it?</p>

<p>“Liberals today,” Rod Dreher observes, “deploy neutral sounding, or even positive, words like <em>dialogue</em> and <em>tolerance</em> to disarm and ultimately defeat unaware conservatives” (emphasis in the original).<a href="#_edn15" name="_ednref15" title="">[15]</a></p>

<p>The manipulation of language is characteristic of totalitarian movements. This is especially true with the retooling of “connotation” words—words like “tolerance” or “racism” that have a certain <em>feel</em> to them. Their rhetorical force remains even when the words themselves are subtly redefined and pressed into service for different ends.</p>

<p>To that point, a significant shift has taken place between the civil rights language of the ’60s and the rhetoric of today’s “anti-racism” and “anti-white supremacist” CRT movement. That shift in <em>language</em> also signals a shift in <em>substance</em>.</p>

<p>The operative words sixty years ago were bigotry, racism, prejudice, discrimination, and segregation. Each had a particular meaning—a commonsense definition that resonated with ordinary moral intuitions. Each was connected to the other in a series of cascading vices terminating in terrible injustice: treating our human brothers made in the image of God in a way that denied their inherent dignity and value.</p>

<p><em>Bigotry</em> was the first step, an individual character flaw of “intolerance toward those who hold different opinions from oneself”<a href="#_edn16" name="_ednref16" title="">[16]</a> (intolerance, here­­­—understood in the more classical sense vs. the postmodern version—meant “unwilling to grant equal freedom and protection especially in religious matters or other social, political, or professional rights”).<a href="#_edn17" name="_ednref17" title="">[17]</a> Bigotry festers into an unreasonable contempt or even hatred for individuals of a group that’s defined by <em>amoral</em> qualities or characteristics like skin color, ethnicity, or gender.</p>

<p>Bigotry is an ugly vice in individuals—a kind of personal pride or arrogance, an I’m-better-than-you conceit—but it’s deeply dangerous on a wider cultural scale, where it often develops into racism.</p>

<p><em>Racism</em> was a familiar term in the 20th century—indeed, it was national policy for two great powers that dragged the world into global war. It���s “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an <em>inherent superiority of a particular race</em>” (emphasis added).</p>

<p>In racism, then, one “race” is above the rest—Aryans and Japanese, to give two classical examples—superior (allegedly) in <em>extrinsic</em> capabilities, and therefore having superior <em>intrinsic</em> value. All others are inferior.</p>

<p>Racism is bigotry writ large. It is deeply vile and degrading, denying the intrinsic value of <em>every</em> human being based on irrelevant extrinsic differences of <em>groups</em> of human beings.</p>

<p>The sense of racial superiority in racism becomes the breeding ground for <em>prejudice</em>, a “preconceived judgment…without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge…an irrational attitude of hostility directed against an individual, a group, or [a] race.”</p>

<p>Prejudice is evil because it ascribes vice to others based on factors unrelated to anything genuinely moral. A Jew, for example, was “pre-judged” as vermin in the Third Reich simply because he was Jewish, completely unrelated to any individual vice. In America, blacks were demeaned, judged by the color of their skin rather than by the content of their character—the antithesis of King’s dream.</p>

<p>Racial prejudice inevitably results in <em>discrimination</em> against those groups considered ethnically inferior. The root concept merely means “to distinguish between” and could be a virtue or a vice, depending. Practiced properly, discrimination is benign (consider the thoughtful “discriminating” person). It’s an evil, though, when one discriminates “to make a difference in treatment or favor on a basis other than individual merit.” This is <em>invidious</em> discrimination—an arbitrary and irrational bias that disenfranchises whole groups of people without legitimate justification.</p>

<p><em>Segregation</em>, the “separation or isolation of a race, class, or ethnic group,” is an application of invidious discrimination and the final consequence in this chain of civil rights evils. It is racism in action, bigotry in applied practice. “Whites Only” policies of the early ’60s and before, for example, restricted patronage in restaurants, seating on buses, the use of bathrooms, and access to housing and education, to name a few of the common cultural discriminatory disgraces of the time.</p>

<p>Bigotry, racism, prejudice, discrimination, and segregation comprised the chain of evil, the rogue’s list of social iniquities that activists addressed in the ’60s. Individual <em>bigotry</em> led to corporate <em>racism</em> that resulted in a generalized <em>prejudice</em> against blacks. The result was in an illicit <em>discrimination</em> against those in the group who were not treated equally under the law. Instead, they suffered the indecency of <em>segregation</em>.</p>

<p>That was the program of a bygone era. That quest for racial justice, though, is behind us, and a new wave has arrived bearing little moral kinship to the noble efforts of the past. Many of the original words remain, but they have been invested with new meanings and endowed with new values.</p>

<h2>Bare-Bones CRT</h2>

<p>First, some concerns. Critical race theory is a complex, controversial subject covering a variety of overlapping disciplines with plenty of variety in the ranks. Thus, any treatment of it—especially a general one—can easily be misunderstood or characterized as an oversimplification or a misrepresentation, so please note these two qualifiers.</p>

<p>One, there is a difference between CRT <em>as an</em> <em>explanatory paradigm</em> (remember, the “T” stands for “Theory”) and racism<em> as a reality</em>. Classically understood, racism is a kind of group bigotry. CRT, by contrast, looks at power structures in cultures to explain <em>why</em> that bigotry and the inequity it causes exist and how they operate within social structures.</p>

<p>It may be that CRT fails as a theory when closely examined. That does <em>not</em> mean racism doesn’t exist, though, but only that CRT does not describe the dynamic of racial oppression well.</p>

<p>An illustration might help. Marxism characterized economic exploitation as a class struggle between the working-class proletariat and the capitalistic bourgeoisie. Marx believed it would inevitably lead to revolution, with workers taking over the means of economic production. This, of course, never happened as Marx envisioned, and most consider Marxism a failed project. This does not mean, though, that worker exploitation didn’t exist during Marx’s time. It did, in abundance.</p>

<p>In the same way, CRT may fail to describe the dynamic of racism in our midst or offer a sound antidote to it. That does <em>not</em> mean racism doesn’t exist in America. It does, but it’s a separate issue and must be assessed on separate grounds.</p>

<p>Two, this piece is not so much a critique of CRT as it is a clarification of its basic elements, a comparison between it and the ethics of the civil rights movement of the ’60s, and a caution regarding its totalitarian tendencies.</p>

<p>Totalitarianism, as the word implies, is total. It’s an ideology, Rod Dreher writes, that “seeks to displace all prior traditions and institutions…bringing all aspects of society under control of that ideology. A totalitarian state is one that aspires to nothing less than <em>defining and controlling reality</em>” (emphasis added).<a href="#_edn18" name="_ednref18" title="">[18]</a></p>

<p>CRT, I am convinced, is like that, offering a comprehensive understanding of reality and giving no quarter to the opposition. It is also rooted in relativism, holding that “objective knowledge—that which is true for everyone, regardless of their identity—is unobtainable, because knowledge is always bound up with cultural values.”<a href="#_edn19" name="_ednref19" title="">[19]</a> I have argued that human lives will be ruled by one of two fundamental forces: truth or power. When objective truth is denied (i.e., relativism), then power alone remains and tyranny follows.</p>

<p>Now to the bare bones.</p>

<p>Critical race theory starts with an assumption. CRT assumes “<em>racism is normal and permanent</em>, and the problem is primarily that people—particularly white people—are failing to see, acknowledge, and address it…. We are to <em>assume</em> that racism is always taking place and our job is to examine situations for evidence of it” (emphasis added).<a href="#_edn20" name="_ednref20" title="">[20]</a></p>

<p>Author Carl Trueman agrees. CRT, he writes,</p>

<blockquote>
<p>is self-certifying. Its basic claims, for example, that racism is systemic or that being non-racist is impossible, are not conclusions drawn from arguments. They are axioms, and they cannot be challenged by those who do not agree with them. Those who ­dissent or offer criticism are, by definition, part of the problem.<a href="#_edn21" name="_ednref21" title="">[21]</a></p>
</blockquote>

<p>The assumption in CRT that racism is basic to culture is a bedrock assumption—obvious, self-evident, and indisputable. Differ, and you’re “part of the problem.” Four central elements of contemporary critical race theory rest on that foundation.<a href="#_edn22" name="_ednref22" title="">[22]</a></p>

<p><strong>The Social Binary</strong>—Humankind is divided broadly into two groups, the oppressed and the oppressors. Dominant groups in power subjugate groups along lines of race, gender, sexuality, gender identity, etc. The power abusers in the West have been white, male, heterosexual, and cisgendered—and Christians, I might add, when believers stand for classical Christian morality.</p>

<p>Oppressor guilt or victim status is assigned not on the basis of <em>individual</em> conduct or experience, but on <em>group</em> identity (thus the rise of “identity politics”). A white, heterosexual male, then, is an oppressor <em>by definition</em>, while a black, lesbian college professor is oppressed—again, by definition. However, members of oppressor groups who get “woke”—awakened, enlightened, and sympathetic to CRT’s take on racial injustice—get a pass as allies. Minorities who side with the oppressors, though, are condemned along with them.</p>

<p><strong>Oppression through Ideology</strong>—Classically, oppressors were characterized by <em>behavior</em> that was cruel, coercive, and abusive. In CRT, oppressor groups maintain privilege and dominance because they have the power to impose their <em>ideology</em> on subordinate groups. Appeals to “objective,” “universal,” and “commonsense” beliefs and values—even when unwittingly accepted by the subjugated group—are nothing more than power plays conveyed through cultural structures weighted in favor of oppressors. Since these patterns of power and domination are built into cultural systems, racial oppression is said to be “systemic.”</p>

<p><strong>Lived Experience</strong>—According to this concept, the distinctive experiences of oppressed people give them privileged access to truths about their oppression. Oppressor groups, on the other hand, do not see their abuses accurately because their privilege blinds them.</p>

<p>Only those abused by the system know the truth about the system’s abuses. Thus, the experience of the “oppressed” is superior to others’ claims of “objective truth” arrived at through “rational thought”—both phrases part of the so-called “language of oppression.” Simply put, “oppressors” don’t have a place at the table.</p>

<p>“Lived experience” is another example of relativism. The truth of one’s own interpretation of his experience is the only truth that matters. <em>Feeling</em> oppressed is proof of oppression. Since such knowledge is personal and private, it’s not open to challenge, effectively insulating CRT from outside assessment or criticism.</p>

<p><strong>Social Justice</strong>—For CRT, liberating oppressed groups by eliminating intolerance and all forms of oppression is the antidote for the wrongs of racism. The goal, of course, is honorable as far as it goes, and many noble Christians are drawn to CRT because of this emphasis. However, “social justice” is not what they think. It’s a term of art dictating the transfer of power based on group identity:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Whereas the Civil Rights Movements worked so well because they used a universalist approach—everybody should have equal rights—that appealed to human intuitions of fairness and empathy, Social Justice uses a simplistic identity politics approach which ascribes collective blame to dominant groups—white people are racist, men are sexist, and straight people are homophobic. This explicitly goes against the established liberal value of not judging people by their race, gender, or sexuality….<a href="#_edn23" name="_ednref23" title="">[23]</a></p>
</blockquote>

<p>Clearly, CRT’s “justice” is not the same as biblical justice, which forbids judging according to group status: “You shall do no injustice in judgment; you shall not show partiality to the poor nor give preference to the great, but you are to judge your neighbor fairly” (Lev. 19:15).</p>

<p>Further, since social justice is the greatest good, social justice warriors justify acts of violence as a legitimate means to end oppression. “Those who resist social justice,” Rod Dreher observes, “are practicing ‘hate,’ and cannot be reasoned with or in any way tolerated, only conquered.”<a href="#_edn24" name="_ednref24" title="">[24]</a></p>

<h2>Civil Rights Upside Down</h2>

<p>In an odd way, CRT has turned the sensibilities of the civil rights movement of the ’60s on its head. Racism is no longer a vice of individuals but rather a corporate abuse of power. Since racism equals prejudice plus power, those lacking power cannot be racist, regardless of their character.</p>

<p>I stumbled on this comment from hip-hop artist Sister Souljah cited in one of my own books over two decades ago:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>You can’t call me or any black person anywhere in the world racist. We don’t have the power to do to white people what white people have done to us. And if we did, we don’t have that low-down dirty nature.<a href="#_edn25" name="_ednref25" title="">[25]</a></p>
</blockquote>

<p>Note two things. One, racism is impossible for people who aren’t party to power. Two, by describing whites as having a “low-down dirty nature,” Sister Souljah attributes nefarious characteristics to a group based on their skin color—precisely the view of Aryan racists of the last century.</p>

<p>Are you beginning to see the turn? This kind of judgment is clearly an act of individual <em>bigotry</em>. On a group level (e.g., CRT), it’s <em>racism</em> in the classical sense—judging one ethnicity morally inferior to another. It’s a <em>prejudice</em> since individuals (whites, in this case) are prejudged based on skin color. <em>Discrimination</em> against individuals in the inferior group is then justified as well as <em>segregation</em> to give preferential treatment to members of the previously oppressed group.<a href="#_edn26" name="_ednref26" title="">[26]</a></p>

<p>So, CRT starts with bigotry and ends with segregation—the same cascade of evils the ’60s civil rights movement fought against. Those who oppose it are denigrated, belittled, shamed, and silenced—discriminated against simply because they’re white or side with those who are. The oppressed become the oppressors—evidence of our universal moral brokenness. This is the face of the new civil rights movement.</p>

<p>Racism remains an intolerable evil. What, though, is that evil, precisely? What makes racism wrong? Racism judges people unjustly—not on their character, but on the color of their skin. It treats valuable human beings made in the image of God in an inhumane, unjust, and oppressive manner.</p>

<p>That is the evil of racism, and it is evil no matter who practices it. The injustice of racism must be addressed, but you cannot fight injustice with injustice. Bigotry by any other name is still bigotry. It is still evil. It is still sin. And no Christian should participate in it, condone it, or champion organizations that do.</p>

<p>There is only one basis for our common unity: our common humanity. There is only one foundation for universal respect and justice: the intrinsic value of each human being made in the image of God. There is nothing else adequate to unite us, and there is nothing else adequate to protect us.</p>

<div>&nbsp;
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%">
<div id="edn1">
<p><a href="#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title="">[1]</a> <em>The Conejo Guardian</em>, May 2021.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn2">
<p><a href="#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title="">[2]</a> Note Bari Weiss, “The Miseducation of America’s Elites,” <em>City Journal</em>, March 9, 2021, <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/the-miseducation-of-americas-elites">https://www.city-journal.org/the-miseducation-of-americas-elites</a>.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn3">
<p><a href="#_ednref3" name="_edn3" title="">[3]</a> Carl Trueman, “Evangelicals and Race Theory,” <em>First Things</em>, February 2021, <a href="https://www.firstthings.com/article/2021/02/evangelicals-and-race-theory">https://www.firstthings.com/article/2021/02/evangelicals-and-race-theory</a>.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn4">
<p><a href="#_ednref4" name="_edn4" title="">[4]</a> Jonathan Butcher and Mike Gonzalez, “Critical Race Theory, the New Intolerance, and Its Grip on America,” <em>The Heritage Foundation</em>, December 7, 2020, <a href="https://www.heritage.org/civil-rights/report/critical-race-theory-the-new-intolerance-and-its-grip-america">https://www.heritage.org/civil-rights/report/critical-race-theory-the-new-intolerance-and-its-grip-america</a>.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn5">
<p><a href="#_ednref5" name="_edn5" title="">[5]</a> Peter Wood, “Biden’s CRT Plan for the schools,” <em>The Spectator</em>, April 23, 2021, <a href="https://spectator.us/topic/biden-critical-race-theory-schools-department-education/">https://spectator.us/topic/biden-critical-race-theory-schools-department-education/</a>.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn6">
<p><a href="#_ednref6" name="_edn6" title="">[6]</a> Anna Mussmann, “California’s ‘Ethnic Studies’ Opens Door to Critical Race Theory Indoctrination throughout Public Schools,” <em>The Federalist</em>, April 5, 2021, <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2021/04/05/californias-ethnic-studies-opens-door-to-critical-race-theory-indoctrination-throughout-public-schools/">https://thefederalist.com/2021/04/05/californias-ethnic-studies-opens-door-to-critical-race-theory-indoctrination-throughout-public-schools/</a>.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn7">
<p><a href="#_ednref7" name="_edn7" title="">[7]</a> Ibid.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn8">
<p><a href="#_ednref8" name="_edn8" title="">[8]</a> Frederick Douglass, “To My Old Master, Thomas Auld,” <a href="https://www.watchtheyard.com/history/fredrick-douglas-letter-to-slave-master-auld/">https://www.watchtheyard.com/history/fredrick-douglas-letter-to-slave-master-auld/</a>.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn9">
<p><a href="#_ednref9" name="_edn9" title="">[9]</a> Recall the line from <a href="https://www.str.org/w/the-primal-heresy">“The Primal Heresy”</a> in the March <em>Solid Ground</em>: “Human lives will be ruled by one of two fundamental forces: either truth or power.”</p>
</div>

<div id="edn10">
<p><a href="#_ednref10" name="_edn10" title="">[10]</a> A “heterosexual-normative” person thinks that only heterosexuality is morally proper. A “cisgender” person is one whose gender identity matches their physical sex. “Cisgender-normative” denotes someone who believes gender is not meant to be fluid and diverse.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn11">
<p><a href="#_ednref11" name="_edn11" title="">[11]</a> Christopher Rufo, “Revenge of the Gods,” <em>City Journal</em>, March 10, 2012, <a href="https://christopherrufo.com/revenge-of-the-gods/">https://christopherrufo.com/revenge-of-the-gods/</a>.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn12">
<p><a href="#_ednref12" name="_edn12" title="">[12]</a> Prov. 18:21.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn13">
<p><a href="#_ednref13" name="_edn13" title="">[13]</a> Rod Dreher, <em>Live Not by Lies</em> (New York City: Sentinel, 2020), 119.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn14">
<p><a href="#_ednref14" name="_edn14" title="">[14]</a> Robert Jay Lifton, <em>The Nazi Doctors—Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide</em> (New York: Basic Books/Harper Collins, 1986), 21.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn15">
<p><a href="#_ednref15" name="_edn15" title="">[15]</a> Dreher, 119.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn16">
<p><a href="#_ednref16" name="_edn16" title="">[16]</a> All definitions in quotes are from <em>Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary</em>, 1965. I’ve used an older source not influenced by current rhetorical trends.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn17">
<p><a href="#_ednref17" name="_edn17" title="">[17]</a> The current postmodern understanding of intolerance is significantly different. See “The Intolerance of Tolerance,” str.org, <a href="https://www.str.org/w/the-intolerance-of-tolerance">https://www.str.org/w/the-intolerance-of-tolerance</a>.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn18">
<p><a href="#_ednref18" name="_edn18" title="">[18]</a> Dreher, 7–8.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn19">
<p><a href="#_ednref19" name="_edn19" title="">[19]</a> Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay, <em>Cynical Theories</em> (Durham, NC: Pitchstone Publishing, 2020), 79.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn20">
<p><a href="#_ednref20" name="_edn20" title="">[20]</a> Ibid., 132–3.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn21">
<p><a href="#_ednref21" name="_edn21" title="">[21]</a> Carl Trueman, “Evangelicals and Race Theory,” <em>First Things</em>, February 2021, <a href="https://www.firstthings.com/article/2021/02/evangelicals-and-race-theory">https://www.firstthings.com/article/2021/02/evangelicals-and-race-theory</a>.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn22">
<p><a href="#_ednref22" name="_edn22" title="">[22]</a> I’m indebted to Dr. Neil Shenvi for this general outline of CRT: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E33aunwGQQ4">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E33aunwGQQ4</a>. Also, find short, animated Colson Center infographics on CRT here <a href="https://youtu.be/DAABuCC96tI">https://youtu.be/DAABuCC96tI</a> and here <a href="https://youtu.be/7rQve0x4aNE">https://youtu.be/7rQve0x4aNE</a>.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn23">
<p><a href="#_ednref23" name="_edn23" title="">[23]</a> Pluckrose and Lindsay, 261.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn24">
<p><a href="#_ednref24" name="_edn24" title="">[24]</a> Dreher, 61.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn25">
<p><a href="#_ednref25" name="_edn25" title="">[25]</a> Beckwith and Koukl, <em>Relativism</em> (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), 101.</p>
</div>

<div id="edn26">
<p><a href="#_ednref26" name="_edn26" title="">[26]</a> Alice Yin, “Mayor Lori Lightfoot Chooses Only Reporters of Color for Interviews,” <em>Chicago Tribune</em>, May 19, 2021, <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/politics/ct-lori-lightfoot-interviews-journalists-of-color-20210519-o6g2ksmaxjditmdainrfvrviia-story.html">https://www.chicagotribune.com/politics/ct-lori-lightfoot-interviews-journalists-of-color-20210519-o6g2ksmaxjditmdainrfvrviia-story.html</a>.</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>

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title: Three Big Bangs
topic: Science
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 07/06/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/three-big-bangs
content:
            <div> 
		<p>You’ve heard of the Big Bang, but are you aware of the other two big bangs? Although the explosion at the beginning of time is the most famous and allegedly kicked off our universe, it turns out there are two additional beginnings that are equally important for our existence. All three big bangs have theistic implications.</p>

<p>Whether you believe the universe began with a Big Bang or not is irrelevant. This isn’t an age-of-the-universe argument or a debate about creation. I’m simply noting that scientists claim the universe <em>began </em>to exist at a moment they call the Big Bang. Whatever it was, our world did have a beginning, and Scripture even attests to that (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=genesis+1%3A1&amp;version=NASB1995">Gen. 1:1</a>). I’d only add that there have been two other big bangs that represent monumental transitions in our history and have brought about two significant phenomena.</p>

<p><strong>Cosmological big bang</strong>: The first big bang was the kickoff. It started it all. Space, time, and matter began to exist with this epic explosion. Although initially thought to be an atheistic alternative to a Creator, the theistic implications of the Big Bang became quickly evident.</p>

<p>A Big Bang needs a Big Banger. You can’t get all of space, time, and matter to pop into existence without any explanation. Keep in mind that “before” the universe began to exist, <em>nothing</em> existed. There was no time, atoms, or space—there wasn’t even a vacuum. What, then, caused everything to begin to exist? There are only two options: nothing or something. Nothing can’t produce something, however. From nothing, nothing comes. The only alternative, then, is to suggest that something (or someone) caused the universe to begin to exist. This beginning that begs for a Creator, however, isn’t the only big bang that needs explaining.</p>

<p><strong>Biological big bang</strong>: Plants and animals—once absent from existence—now populate the planet. However, how does life emerge from non-living matter? Not only must lifeless parts assemble, without help, to form living cells, but colossal amounts of program code (i.e., DNA) are necessary to create living organisms and to enable those organisms to operate properly. It’s a gargantuan step to go from non-living matter to even the simplest of living, reproducing cells. Microbiologist Michael Denton explains the challenge of bringing about a biological big bang:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>We now know not only of the existence of a break between the living and non-living world, but also that it represents the most dramatic and fundamental of all the discontinuities of nature. Between a living cell and the most highly ordered non-biological system, such as a crystal or snowflake, there is a chasm as vast and absolute as it is possible to conceive.</p>

<p>Molecular biology has shown that even the simplest of all living systems on earth today, bacterial cells, are exceedingly complex objects…. Each is in effect a veritable microminiaturized factory containing thousands of exquisitely designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of one hundred thousand million atoms, far more complicated than any machine built by man and absolutely without parallel in the non-living world….</p>

<p>The complexity of the simplest known type of cell is so great that it is impossible to accept that such an object could have been thrown together suddenly by some kind of freakish, vastly improbable, event. Such an occurrence would be indistinguishable from a miracle.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The transition from non-life to life represents a big bang, an explosion of life forms showing up across the planet.</p>

<p><strong>Big bang of consciousness</strong>: A third unbelievable creation event is the beginning of minds. How does inert matter begin to think and become self-aware? Physical objects—no matter how complex—don’t have the capacity to reason and reflect on their own existence. At some point, however, mere matter became conscious, began to think, and now we have Da Vinci’s <em>Mona Lisa</em>, Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, and Shakespeare’s writings. Consciousness burst onto the scene, and there are now billions of people to reflect upon it.</p>

<p>All three big bangs represent monumental beginnings of fundamentally new things that didn’t exist before: matter, life, and consciousness. Naturalists—people who deny God’s existence and believe physical or material things are all that exist—appear comfortable attributing the start of such profoundly significant creations to nothing. No one or no thing thought of, planned, or created physical matter, biological life, or conscious minds. Nothing made everything. It truly is a miracle.</p>

<p>An alternative scenario says something (or someone) made all things. Whatever it was, it had the power to make matter from nothing, to give life to lifeless matter, and consciousness to the mindless.</p>

<p>This isn’t a debate about evidence. Don’t be fooled by the old narrative where atheists claim to uphold reason, evidence, and science while Christians succumb to sly fairy tales. Both parties are looking at the same evidence. The only difference between them is the worldview by which they interpret reality. The atheists’ naturalism tells them nothing made everything, even though nothing is impotent to do or create anything. The Christians’ worldview says something (indeed someone) created all things. The fundamental divide is over worldviews, not evidence.</p>
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title: Two Steps to Engage Anyone
topic: Tactics and Tools
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 07/13/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/two-steps-to-engage-anyone
content:
            <div> 
		<p>I’m often asked what my strategy is with Muslims. You could ask me a similar question about Mormons, atheists, skeptics, Hindus, etc. My answer will always be the same: learn and engage. I think it’s a biblical approach.</p>

<p>Paul provides the Corinthian believers with an important framework, one we at Stand to Reason love to highlight:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. (2 Cor. 5:18–20)</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Notice Paul tells believers that our identity is being an ambassador for Christ and our mission is to proclaim the message of reconciliation (the gospel). That means we should see ourselves as ambassadors.</p>

<p>Consider political ambassadors. They typically do two things: learn and engage. The first step: <em>learn </em>about a people group. The second step: go to the country and <em>engage</em> those people. The order is important. Ambassadors first learn about the people, their language, their history, their values, and their foreign policy concerns. That way, when they go to the foreign country, they can draw upon that knowledge to carefully craft their message.</p>

<p>As ambassadors for Christ, we should do the same. Whether we’re anticipating talking to Muslims, Mormons, Hindus, atheists, skeptics, or anyone else, the approach is similar. You should take the time to learn as much as you can about the person (or people group). Study their ideas, beliefs, and values as best you can. That way, when you talk to them, you can draw upon that knowledge to carefully craft your message. Your message, of course, is really God’s message of reconciliation.</p>
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title: What Motivates Sin (and How to Fight It)
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 07/23/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/what-motivates-sin-and-how-to-fight-it-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>I just heard this brilliant description of sin on the <a href="https://whitehorseinn.org/resource-library/shows/failed-bible-heroes/">White Horse Inn podcast</a>, in a comment by Justin Holcomb:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>What you see in Adam and Abraham’s story is that sin is motivated by a dissatisfaction with God’s providence and the attitude that God is somehow withholding something good from his people, so that they have to take the action on their own.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>This is exactly what I’ve discovered. It’s when you think you’re missing out on something good that you try to grab things God hasn’t given you in a way he hasn’t allowed. You think you’re missing out on something wonderful and that you need to rectify that situation in order to have a truly fulfilled life, when in reality, the only way to <em>truly</em> miss out is by <em>not being</em> <em>obedient in the situation God has you in right now</em>. Even if that means there are some good things you will not have.</p>

<h2>The Highest Way to Live</h2>

<p>Living in obedience in your situation is the highest way to live. As soon as you’re disobedient—as soon as you try to take things that aren’t properly yours—you have made your situation worse. It doesn’t matter how good the things you want are in themselves; you will only miss out in life if you try to take those things in a way that goes against God. Better to live without them altogether than to debase yourself and dishonor God by taking them.</p>

<p>I can’t help but think of C.S. Lewis’s <em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Magicians-Nephew-C-S-Lewis/dp/0064405052/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+magician%27s+nephew&amp;qid=1627005336&amp;sr=8-1">The Magician’s Nephew</a></em>, where he powerfully illustrates this idea when Digory is tempted by the White Witch to break the commands of Aslan and steal an apple that would save his mother’s life. The temptation to take something good in the wrong way almost overwhelms him as she tempts him:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>“Do you not see, Fool, that one bite of that apple would heal her? You have it in your pocket. We are here by ourselves and the Lion is far away. Use your Magic and go back to your own world. A minute later you can be at your Mother’s bedside, giving her the fruit. Five minutes later you will see the color coming back to her face. She will tell you the pain is gone. Soon she will tell you she feels stronger. Then she will fall asleep—think of that; hours of sweet natural sleep, without pain, without drugs. Next day everyone will be saying how wonderfully she has recovered. Soon she will be quite well again. All will be well again. Your home will be happy again. You will be like other boys.”</p>

<p>“Oh!” gasped Digory as if he had been hurt, and put his hand to his head. For he now knew that the most terrible choice lay before him.</p>

<p>“What has the Lion ever done for you that you should be his slave?” said the Witch. “What can he do to you once you are back in your own world? And what would your Mother think if she knew that you <em>could</em> have taken her pain away and given her back her life and saved your Father’s heart from being broken, and that you <em>wouldn’t</em>—that you’d rather run messages for a wild animal in a strange world that is no business of yours?”</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Is Aslan trustworthy? Is he good? Is he holding out on Digory by keeping something good from him—something Digory should simply take, something he <em>needs</em> to take in order to truly find happiness? Digory makes his decision and follows Aslan’s instructions, though (he believes) at great cost to himself.</p>

<h2>The Greater Cost</h2>

<p>The Witch, on the other hand, indulges her appetite—and it turns out she has paid the <em>greater</em> cost. Aslan tells Digory:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>“But while that Tree flourishes she will never come down into Narnia. She dare not come within a hundred miles of the Tree, for its smell, which is joy and life and health to you, is death and horror and despair to her.” …</p>

<p>“[W]e thought, Aslan,” [Polly] said, “that there must be some mistake, and she can’t really mind the smell of those apples.”</p>

<p>“Why do you think that, Daughter of Eve?” asked the Lion.</p>

<p>“Well, she ate one.”</p>

<p>“Child,” he replied, “that is why all the rest are now a horror to her. That is what happens to those who pluck and eat fruits at the wrong time and in the wrong way. The fruit is good, but they loathe it ever after.”</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Disobedience <em>always</em> extracts the greater cost. But as fallen human beings, it’s not always easy to believe this, so we choose sin over faithfulness.</p>

<h2>How to Fight Your Sin</h2>

<p>Knowing this root of sin helps us plan a way to fight it. If “sin is motivated by a dissatisfaction with God’s providence” and a distrust in his goodness towards us, then the key to resisting sin is to increase our trust in God’s providence and goodness (including the goodness of the moral standard he has revealed to us), and that can be done in a few ways: 1) by reading about all he has done for his people throughout history, as recorded in the Bible, 2) by recounting all he has done for us in our own past, and 3) by reflecting on the cross.</p>

<p>The cross, of course, <a href="https://www.str.org/w/the-gospel-s-answer-to-the-problem-of-evil">sums up everything</a> we need to know beautifully. On the cross, we not only see God’s providence—the culmination of the plan he promised since the Fall and carefully orchestrated over centuries (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=rom+15%3A8-9&amp;version=NASB">Rom. 15:8–9</a>; <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts+4%3A23-30&amp;version=NASB">Acts 4:23–30</a>)—but we also see his unfathomable goodness towards us. And here’s what follows from that: “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?” (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=rom+8%3A32&amp;version=NASB">Rom. 8:32</a>). If God gave even his own son, we can know without a doubt that he is <em>not</em> holding out on us. If there is anything we lack, we can know there is a reason for it—and not just a reason, but a reason motivated by his love and orchestrated by his providence.</p>

<p>Do you love God more than that sin that’s enticing you? Is obedience to him more valuable to you than that good thing you desire but don’t properly have? None of us trusts him perfectly, but reflect on the goodness of his character and providence, and, through the power of the Spirit, your ability to resist sin will increase.</p>
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title: Looking for Your Role in God’s Kingdom? Start Here
topic: Christian Living
author: Tim Barnett
date: 07/29/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/looking-for-your-role-in-god-s-kingdom-start-here
content:
            <div> 
		<p>I didn’t always work in full-time ministry. I used to have a career in education. I taught high school science and math, <em>and I loved it.</em></p>

<p>So, why did I leave a treasured teaching position to be a full-time apologist? Many Christians think I must have been “called” by God. Well, if you were to think that, you’d be wrong. I didn’t hear a voice or feel a nudge. It didn’t happen that way for me. And I don’t think it happens that way for most people.</p>

<p>Instead, there are four broad concepts that have helped steer the direction of my work and ministry. If you’re trying to find your role in serving the kingdom of God, remember these four things.</p>

<p><strong>First, you have a gift.</strong></p>

<p><em>Every </em>Christian plays a role in the kingdom of God. Whether you’re a pastor or a plumber, a deacon or a dentist, an evangelist or an electrician, <em>you</em> have a part to play. Some refer to this as “your calling,” though that’s not how the New Testament authors use the term. The concept of “calling” gives the impression that God needs to tell you what to do before you do it. As a result, many people are sitting on the sidelines, waiting to hear God’s voice. This is a mistake.</p>

<p>God doesn’t distribute ministry by <em>calling</em>—at least not usually. He distributes ministry by <em>gifting</em>. Paul says, “<em>Having gifts</em> that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them” (Rom. 12:6). Peter writes, “As each has <em>received a gift</em>, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace” (1 Pet. 4:10). So we make a difference for the kingdom by using our gifts. What’s your gifting?</p>

<p><strong>Second, bloom where you’re planted.</strong></p>

<p>Look for opportunities—big or small—to use whatever abilities you have to make a difference for the kingdom. We call this <em>blooming where you’re planted</em>. Here’s how it works. You do whatever you can, wherever you are, with whatever God’s given you. Sometimes it doesn’t seem like much. But that’s okay. God will use it. Take whatever circumstances you’re in, and do something.</p>

<p><strong>Third, put faithfulness first.</strong></p>

<p>Many of us are <em>results</em> oriented. We gauge our success by the <em>impact</em> of our efforts. But this confuses God’s work with our work. Our job is to focus on being faithful, and we leave the results to God. Remember, the same God who provides the gift <em>also</em> gives the results.</p>

<p>Remember the story of Jesus feeding the 5000 (John 6). The boy didn’t have much, but he gave what he had to Jesus. And Jesus gave the increase. If you are faithful in small things first, then you’re given larger things to be faithful in. That’s how God works. So faithfully give what you have to God, and let him take care of the rest.</p>

<p><strong>Fourth, know your audience.</strong></p>

<p>Although there are different gifts being used in different ways, we all serve for the same end: “in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 4:11). In <em>whatever you do</em>, work as for the Lord (Col. 3:23) so that when you stand before your audience of one, you may hear those joyous words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”</p>
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title: The Toughest Critic You’ll Ever Face
topic: Christian Living
author: Greg Koukl
date: 08/03/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/the-toughest-critic-you-ll-ever-face
content:
            <div> 
		<p>One winter in Calgary, Alberta, a few years back, J. Warner Wallace and I each offered impromptu vignettes at a breakfast for a dozen pastors who were skeptical about the importance of apologetics.</p>

<p>It’s amazing to me that pastors need a tutorial on the need for defending Christianity given the obvious biblical and practical points each of us made, yet many do. I followed Jim—which is not an easy task—and gave a quick four-point mini-sermon on why making a case for our convictions is critical for Christians.</p>

<p>“<em>Other than</em> Scripture commands it,” I said, “and <em>other than</em> Jesus and the apostles did it,” I added, “and <em>other than</em> that apologetics work, being able to defend our Christian convictions will help us answer the toughest critic we will ever face.”</p>

<p>My “other than” phrasing was purposeful. Any <em>one</em> of the first three reasons should be adequate to convince any Christian, especially pastors. The last one, though, was critical, taking them into territory most have never considered.</p>

<p><em>First, the Bible commands it.</em> Peter says, famously, that Christians should always be prepared “to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence” (1 Pet. 3:15). No ambiguity here. People are going to challenge our views, Peter presumes. Be ready, then, to respond intelligently and graciously. Simple.</p>

<p><em>Second, Jesus used evidence and arguments to verify his claims, and the disciples followed his example—all the time.</em> Jesus miraculously healed a lame man to demonstrate his authority to forgive sins (Mk. 2:10–12). Jesus said that the “sign” verifying his messianic office would be his resurrection (Jn. 2:18ff; Matt. 12:38ff).</p>

<p>John states clearly that the principle reason he wrote his Gospel was to verify Jesus’ miraculous signs so we might “believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name” (Jn. 20:30–31).</p>

<p>Peter’s sermon on Pentecost in Acts 2 is riddled with references to evidences confirming the gospel: fulfilled prophecy (17–21; 31, 34–35), the apostles’ eyewitness experience of the resurrected Christ (32), supernatural signs the Jews could “see and hear” (33), etc.</p>

<p>Paul said he was actually “appointed for the defense of the gospel” (Phil. 1:7, 16), and he took his commission seriously. Acts records that Paul, “according to his custom,” “reasoned” and gave “evidence” for the death and resurrection of Christ, and some were “persuaded” (Acts 17:2–4). Note the results. That’s my next point.</p>

<p><em>Third, apologetics work.</em> People are, in fact, <em>persuaded</em> by them—in Luke’s words. God actually takes evidence and arguments, uses them to convince people the gospel is true, and they’re converted. It happens all the time.</p>

<p>On Pentecost, three thousand responded to Peter’s evidence-filled sermon (Acts 2:41). On Mars Hill, after Paul cited Jesus’ resurrection as “proof” of his points, some “joined him and believed” (Acts 17:30–34).</p>

<p>I also pointed out to the pastors at breakfast that the former atheist who’d just instructed them that morning about the importance of apologetics—J. Warner Wallace—had himself been persuaded by the facts to repent and follow Christ.</p>

<p>My three “other thans” were all good points, but they were building to my main takeaway, my biggest concern at this point for Christians in our culture—the final and most important reason we should take apologetics seriously.</p>

<p><em>Fourth, apologetics will help you face the toughest critic you will ever encounter: yourself.</em> Everybody has doubts—including pastors and apologists—even under the best of conditions. But the current cultural mood regarding spiritual and ethical concerns is not the best of conditions. It’s one of the worst we’ve faced.</p>

<p>In the tough times we’re in now, my biggest concern is not for the world. It’s for you, to protect you from the lies in the world and from the lies of the wolves in our midst. I know that when apologetics give you confidence that Christianity is actually true—true the way gravity is true—you’ll have the courage to stand when the challenges come your way. And they will come.</p>

<p>What I said in <a href="https://www.str.org/w/why-pronouns-matter%E2%80%A6a-lot">my last letter</a> is worth repeating. At the moment, we may not be able to change culture, but we can always keep the culture from changing us. That is what I’m focused on now—guarding those who have been entrusted to me, and that includes you.</p>
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title: Tolerance Turned Upside Down
topic: Philosophy
author: Jonathan Noyes
date: 08/12/2021
source: https://www.str.org/w/tolerance-turned-upside-down
content:
            <div> 
		<p>When I was an atheist, I thought Christianity was immoral and dangerous. Anything but agreement and acceptance of others, including their ideas and moral choices, was intolerant. I thought it was intolerant to be a Christian.</p>

<p>But is this what intolerance means?</p>

<p>Words matter. In conversations with others, we often use the same words but with different meanings. If you want to have productive conversations, first get clear on what the words they’re using mean.</p>

<p>Nowhere is this more important than with the word “tolerance.”</p>

<p>We all want to be “tolerant” people, in the right sense of the word. We want to be kind and respectful of others, even when we disagree. The problem is, this isn’t what tolerance means anymore.</p>

<p>In contemporary culture, tolerance means to accept ideas and affirm them, even if we don’t agree with them. That’s because, in postmodern tolerance, everybody’s ideas are right in their own way.</p>

<p>Here’s why. According to postmodernism, there’s no truth. Fredrick Nietzsche’s famous work <em>Thus Spoke Zarathustra</em> expressed the idea perfectly: “You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist”—in current terms, ��True for you but not for me” or “Live your truth.”</p>

<p>According to postmodernism, because there’s no ultimate truth, “tolerance” requires we embrace everyone’s ideas as <em>true for them</em>, even when our views completely contradict their views.</p>

<p>There are two big problems with that kind of tolerance. First, it self-destructs. Second, it’s not tolerance at all because tolerance demands disagreement. Let’s look at both.</p>

<p>Contemporary tolerance self-destructs. You may not see this problem right away—how postmodern tolerance is self-refuting—so let me show you. First, the claim that there is no truth is itself a truth claim, so it affirms what it’s denying. Second, the charge that we’re intolerant assumes the moral truth that we ought not be that way but rather be tolerant instead. So, this notion self-destructs twice. Both assertions assume there is truth while claiming there is no truth. See the problem?</p>

<p>Clearly, there’s something deeply wrong with the contemporary view of tolerance. From the very start, it self-destructs. But there’s a second problem.</p>

<p>This next point is foundational if you want to practice true tolerance and understand why the contemporary view of tolerance is false.</p>

<p>When you tolerate something, you agree to respectfully endure something you <em>don’t</em> believe or like. It means to recognize and respect another’s beliefs and practices <em>without</em> agreeing with them. You don’t tolerate things you agree with. You don’t tolerate things you approve of. You can only truly tolerate something you do not support.</p>

<p>For example, when I talk with friends about same-sex marriage, sometimes I’ll ask if they tolerate the marriage of same-sex couples. “Of course!” they say. I then ask, “So you think same-sex marriage is wrong, then?” “Of course I don’t think it’s wrong. I’m all for it.” Then I say, “Well if you don’t think it’s wrong, then you don’t tolerate it. You agree with it.”</p>

<p>See the point?</p>

<p>Let me clarify something important, though. With true tolerance, you always show respect and kindness to the person you don’t agree with. That’s what makes tolerance a virtue, after all—kindness and respect <em>in the midst of</em> disagreement.</p>

<p>So as it turns out, contemporary, postmodern tolerance is not only self-refuting, it isn’t really tolerance at all since it demands agreement and approval, where true tolerance requires disapproval. Also, true tolerance requires respect for those who differ, but there’s little respect shown for those who violate postmodern tolerance.</p>

<p>In a word, the contemporary view is tolerance turned upside down.</p>

<p>When I was an atheist, I thought Christians were intolerant. In hindsight, <em>I</em> was the one lacking real tolerance. So, the next time someone calls you intolerant, ask them what they mean by “tolerance.” You may discover they mean something very different from you.</p>
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