The Divine-Deli-Cafeteria Religion and the Sufficiency of Scripture
This week Newsweek released a story that shows us how far the American mind has drifted from looking to scripture for answers. As we are quickly closing in on the date for the Sufficiency of Scripture conference in December, I am mindful of the various influences that have banished this kind of thinking from American culture. The compromised church, the fruits of public education, the addiction to age segregation, the collapse of the family in America have created a completely different world than our founding fathers conceived.
Newsweek magazine sums it all up by saying, “We Are All Hindus Now.” (Click HERE to view full article)
Newsweek declares that, “America is not a Christian nation,” even though we were founded by Christians. The magazine says that we now think more like Hindus than Christians. Citing the Rig Veda (Hindu scripture), “Truth is One, but the sages speak of it by many names.” This means that all paths lead to God whether Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Wicca or otherwise.
The article goes on to say that Americans no longer accept the Christian proposition that Jesus spoke, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.” Today 65% embrace the idea that “many religions can lead to eternal life”-including 37% of white evangelicals. America embraces, what Stephen Prothero calls, "the divine-deli-cafeteria religion." He says it is "very much in the spirit of Hinduism.”
Prothero puts his finger on the pulse of American thinking – pragmatism. He says, "It isn't about orthodoxy. It's about whatever works.”
Further, Newsweek reminds us that our views of death and dying are rapidly changing. Whereas we previously believed in the sacredness of body and soul, now more of us believe in reincarnation and cremation. Today, a whopping 24% of Americans believe in reincarnation – up from 6% in 1975.
The author ends the article revealing the real issue that is being attacked – the gospel itself. She quotes Diana Eck, professor of comparative religion at Harvard, saying that all of this rejects the Christian doctrine of the resurrection. This is the fatal flaw and the final blow of the American mentality that rejects scripture as the only guide. It denies the resurrection of Christ, the credence of which all of Hindu thought seeks to destroy.
One element of the importance of the sufficiency of scripture is this: When you abandon it, the gospel is eventually abandoned. This is one of the hard lessons of the seeker sensitive movement turned “emergent.” Now, without scriptural foundation, instead of Christianity, you get the divine Deli "cafeteria religion." To understand how to rebuild the foundations that have been destroyed, come and learn what it means to trust the Word of God as applicable to every area of life at the Sufficiency of Scripture 2009 Conference in Cincinnati this December 10th through 12th. Or, as the NCFIC interns have dubbed it, "S.O.S."
Women in Combat - Morality Circumvented
It is hard to ignore the sad state of a nation that has lost its sense of the beauty and glory of womanhood and the necessity of an estimable treatment of women that includes protection. In the church and family these issues are of enormous importance. This collapse of love for the opposite sex always follows the collapse of biblical patriarchy. Albert Mohler writes about what is happening behind the scenes and public statements, on the matter in his article, "A Quiet Circumvention of Morality - Women in Combat." He writes,
"A nation's moral character is revealed in the way it fights its wars. This report, filled with documentation, reveals that our nation's moral character is now being redefined before our eyes. If it is true that a majority of the American people affirm their readiness to see women "join combat units, where they would be directly involved in the ground fighting," the American people are demonstrating their disregard for the moral wisdom of the ages. The nation is forfeiting the responsibility of men to act as protectors of women, and acquiescing to the failure of men to fulfill their duty."
Scott Brown on Moody Radio's Prime Time America
Paul Butler with Moody Radio just interviewed me on our new book, Family Reformation: The Legacy of Sola Scriptura in John Calvin’s Geneva and in honor of his show, today we are again offering personally signed copies for 50% off.
Go to Paul Butler's blog to listen to the interview HERE.
Signed Copy 50% off Sale ends tomorrow night August 13th.
Click HERE to purchase.
Parenting as Cultural Resistance
Neil Postman, one of the truly insightful secular social commentators of the 20th century, was correct when he said that parenting was “Cultural Resistance.” In one of his books, “The Disappearance of Childhood” he outlines the devastating influences of our culture on childhood. At the end of the book he asks a question, “is the individual powerless to restrict what is happening?” He says,
The answer to this, in my opinion, is “No.” But, as with all resistance, there is a price to pay. Specifically, resistance entails conceiving of parenting as an act of rebellion against American culture. For example, for parents merely to remain married is itself an act of disobedience and an insult to the spirit of a throwaway culture in which continuity has little value. It is also at least ninety percent un-American to remain in close proximity to one’s extended family so that children can experience, daily, the meaning of kinship and the value of deference and responsibility to elders. Similarly, to insist that one’s children learn the discipline of delayed gratification, or modesty in their sexuality, or self-restraint in manners, language, and style is to place oneself in opposition to almost every social trend. Even further, to ensure that one’s children work hard at becoming literate is extraordinarily time-consuming and even expensive. But most rebellious of all is the attempt to control the media’s access to one’s children. There are, in fact, two ways to do this. The first is to limit the amount of exposure children have to media. The second is to monitor carefully what they are exposed to, and to provide them with a continuously running critique of the themes and values of the media’s content. Both are very difficult to do and require a level of attention that most parents are not prepared to give to child-rearing.
Nonetheless, there are parents who are committed to doing all of these things, who are in effect defying the directives of their culture. Such parents are not only helping their children to have a childhood but are, at the same time, creating a sort of intellectual elite. Certainly in the short run the children who grow up in such homes will, as adults, be much favored by business, the professions, and the media themselves. What can we say of the long run? Only this: Those parents who resist the spirit of the age will contribute to what might be called the Monastery Effect, for they will help to keep alive a humane tradition. It is not conceivable that our culture will forget that it needs children. But it is halfway toward forgetting that children need childhood. Those who insist on remembering shall perform a noble service.
Neil Postman, The Disappearance of Childhood, (1982; repr,. New York: Vintage, 1994), 152-153
Arraign it, Accuse it, Spit on it - Hatred of Sin
What kind of reactions should we have toward our sin? Thomas Goodwin says this,
Work in your hearts a hatred of sin… If a man had killed your friend, or father, or mother, how would you hate him! You would not endure the sight of him, but follow the law upon him. Send out the avenger of blood with a hue and cry after thy sin; bring it afore God’s judgment seat, arraign it, accuse it, spit on it, condemn it and thyself for it, have it to the cross, nail it there, if it cry I thirst, give it vinegar, stretch the body of sins upon his cross, stretch every vein of it, make the heart strings crack; and then when it hangs there, triumph over the dying of it, show it no pity, laugh at its destruction, say, Thou hast been a bloody sin to me and my husband, hang there and rot. And when thou art tempted to it [sin], and art very thirsty after the pleasure of it, say of that opportunity to enjoy it, It is the price of Christ’s blood, and pour it upon the ground. … Shall I live upon that which was Christ’s death? Shall I please myself in that which was his pain? Shall I be so dishonest, so unkind, as to enjoy the pleasure for which he endured the smart?
—Thomas Goodwin (1600—1679), Christ the Mediator in The Works of Thomas Goodwin (RHB), 5:294.
I found this excellent quote on Miscellanies Blog.
Welcoming Our Fall Intern Class
We are pleased to welcome our fall intern class to join us for the next five months here at the NCFIC. Please pray for these men as they assist us in the work of church reformation. It is our prayer that their time with us would be fruitful in every way. Pray for their labors, for their studies, and that God would give them a vision of His Holiness, the power of His word, the beauty of the church and an abundance of spiritual fruit from these months of labor and mentorship.