In the News

Therefore, We Will Not Fear

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God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,
though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble at its swelling. Selah
–Psalm 46:1-3

Broken mirror, fear“Therefore, we will not fear…”

I don’t know why so many Christians today live in fear. But then again, I do know.

It is American to want to be in control. Our national psyche reflects maintaining what we have accumulated for ourselves. Protecting. Guaranteeing.

You see it on days that celebrate our soldiers, both those living and those dead. We console ourslves by saying they made the sacrifice to ensure freedom. The oddity in this is that ensuring freedom is also ensuring control.

It is also true that one man’s freedom is another man’s control, and nothing drives fear into our hearts more than to see our control give way to what another man considers his freedom.

And then the mountains begin to move, and both men realize that control is an illusion. And now both fear.

I don’t know when Christians in America began to fear so much, but I think the postmillennialistic triumphalism that was the hallmark of the American Church of the 19th century was disabused by the events of World War I. That the world could descend into such madness despite all our positive work to better ourselves! We lost control and failed most inhumanly. I think that nothing has been the same for us as a Church ever since.

Here’s the thing: Christians, more than anyone, should be sober people. We understand the nature of fallen men. We understand evil. We have a Gospel that tells us that we were incapable of controlling ourselves in a way that could save us. Only God in Christ had that level of control. Our salvation, even though He looked like us, came from outside of us. We could not save ourselves. We are not in control.

There is something about the American Church of the last 50-60 years that has been loathe to admit that we are not in control, even though we should understand this better than others. The Culture Wars we waged were always more about maintaining control than they were about actual sin.

Even today, as we see God’s symbol of the rainbow co-opted by those who rail against Him, their victories portrayed as our supposed losses, we are as fearful about what this loss of control means as we are about the sin that fuels it.

Into this, God speaks to the Christian soul and reminds us that even moving mountains should not be a cause for fear. His perfect love casts out all fear. He reminds us that fear is, indeed, the opposite of love.

Christian, never fear.

I can tell you that with words, but what is true is that drawing closer to God is they only way to live without fear. Draw close and trust. God is never surprised, and He is in control. Only He remains unmoveable, and when we abide in Him, we are as well.

Empty Faith: When Manliness, Quiverfull, and Christian Principles Add Up to Nothing

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Many people are lamenting the loss of church membership in the U.S., though I’m not convinced those loss numbers are anything but statistical anomalies.

Still, I think something is happening to the quality of Christian practice in this country. In addition, there’s a loss of understanding about what it means to be a Christian, what the Gospel is, how the Church should act, and what the whole point of being a Christian is.

The disintegration of a Christian family is at the core of this article:

“How Playing Good Christian Housewife Almost Killed Me“

The author talks about being in the Quiverfull Movement, made famous by the Duggar family. Quiverfull practitioners believe that large families are a blessing from God, so they adhere to a set of Christian principles based around Psalm 127.

While the term fundamentalist comes out in the article, it’s clear to me that Quiverfull is not relegated to old school Baptist churches in line with Jack Hyles and Bob Jones. It’s far more evangelical than some evangelicals care to admit.

And frankly, I see nothing wrong with having a large family. If God blesses you with a large family, fantastic!

But what does trouble me is that despite the author’s protests that she indeed had a great relationship with Jesus, what comes out in the article shows she had a deeper relationship with someone’s idea of core Quiverfull Christian principles.

Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman, laments Tammy Wynette, but being a dad is just as hard. Over at the Familyman podcast with Todd Wilson, we find out that the “Buck Stops with Dad,” and if you’re a man without a job (that section starts at 15:00 into the podcast), well…

The answer? Pick yourself up by your own bootstraps, knuckle down, put your nose to the grindstone, work harder, take three menial jobs, and do it by yourself. Man up. Abide by Christian principles of manliness and fatherhood, read a couple John Eldredge books, and good luck. Because you’re on your own, buddy. Every godly man for himself.

It makes me wonder what the point of being a Christian is.

Nothing in that podcast said anything about what a man should expect from his church when he’s out of a job. It’s likely that this overt omission is because we have churches built on Christian principles, but not a whole of evidence of being those churches being built on Christ.

Amid all that loneliness and despair, someone gets it right…

Over at the Brant & Sherri Podcast, Brant Hansen talks about what happens when churches play church and fail to be the Church (starts at 10:11)…

It seems to me that people aren’t going to the American Church for answers anymore because the Church gave them Christian principles rather than what they showed up to receive. People came looking for a family and for Jesus, and they got a list of disconnected, out-of-context Bible verses instead.

Desperate people walked into church on Sunday, and they got a lesson on how to be a perfect wife/husband/student/employee/taxpayer/American, when every part of their life was falling apart, and they just needed someone to care, to listen, to be Jesus in the flesh for them.

Hurting, needy, broken people do not need Christian principles; they need a community of believers who will do anything necessary to help. But most of all, they need Jesus. Hell is filled with people who lived by Christian principles and yet had no relationship with Jesus.

It staggers me that we can’t get this right.

I’m sure people will listen to Hansen’s podcast and tear up at some point, because what he talks about is what people are dying for. They want to know that someone–anyone–cares enough to make them a part of a “forever family.” They keep looking for that kind of love, acceptance, and support, with Jesus at the center of that caring community, yet they can’t find it anywhere.

5 Reasons Christians Need to “Stifle It” (and #6 Will Change Your Life)

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I’ve come to the point that I no longer care about what happens in cultural evangelicalism. I walked away from evangelicalism years ago, frustrated with the direction of the movement. I guess this is the natural end point of that walking away.

My leaving, however, is not even a blip on the radar. No one cares. And why should they?

Since I’m pushing rapidly toward geezerdom, I remember the ’70s-era TV show All in the Family. Opinionated loudmouth Archie Bunker would shoot down wife Edith’s insights by telling her to “stifle it.” And people would laugh.

Archie BunkerBut as I look around the Internet, I see plenty of indicators that evangelicals need to take Archie’s advice and stifle it lest they become Archie Bunkers themselves. The Internet has become a gossip-fest, where too many Christians feel compelled to blather on about the latest scandal in the Christian community, whether it’s a real scandal or not. We must let others know just how a mature Christian views such goings on. We must.

I’ve been casually noticing the neo-Calvs cannibalize each other this past summer, culminating in one of their most famous members torn to pieces recently by former friends and supporters. The talk and speculation are crazed. It’s a nonstop train wreck, all of it, and we’re fooling ourselves if we think it makes us stronger.

We’ve become obsessed with celebrity Christians on the national stage, especially pastors, and their rightness or wrongness. We jump into cultural and racial conversations to inject supposedly Christian ideals, only they’re not all that Christian, and their lack of winsomeness makes us look horrible. We comment without facts. We talk without sense. We go on and on spouting myths. half-truths, and outright stupidity. We spew words about situations we know absolutely nothing about, and yet we think we’re worthy of enshrining on a panel for Meet the Press, Christian Edition, because we are so “wise.”

It’s foolishness writ large and in public. And nearly all of it does nothing but dishonor the Lord.

More than at any time in recent memory, I think we American Christians need a real self-check about how opinionated we’ve become. I know that’s an opinion in itself, but nonetheless, I think we would all be better off if we pulled out of all the online discourse and took a couple months off from making sure everyone knows what we think about _______.

One of the reasons that Cerulean Sanctum has been quiet goes beyond just my change in work. A good chunk of it is because I’m disgusted by online discourse. Everyone talks past everyone else, and there is little reasoned discussion. Worse, we seem to be investing huge amounts of emotional energy into conversations that have no Kingdom benefit—none. It’s just windbagdom, and it’s cruel, without love, and pompous to the nth degree.

Did you catch the title of this post? It’s SEO gold—at least the theory of it is. We’re sucked into this kind of thing on the Web, and it doesn’t help the situation. We feel we must comment. If a celebrity Christian’s name is attached, all the better.

Can we stifle it? Please? Does anyone else see how pathetic our discourse has become? Is my expressing my golden words the reason Jesus died? Is it critical to for everyone to know what you or I think about Pastor ________? Or about our government? Or about race relations in some town we’ve never visited? Or who is liberal and who is not? Or our thoughts on the sex lives of celebrities? Or why some actor killed himself? Or? Or? Or…?

Really?

Honestly, I’m at a point where I’ve stopped caring. We’re becoming blowhards talking our own smack. Time for all of us to wake up and get a life.