Not So Fast

The fastest growing religious identity in recent American census data is "NONE."  Those who claim to be Christians are expected to drop from 3/4 of the population in 2010 to 2/3 by 2050.

This should not really surprise us. It is just revealing something that we already know - religion can be just an external label that has nothing to do with spiritual conversion.

This definitely doesn't surprise God. In Isaiah 58, God takes the Israelites to task for their religious practices that are void of true spirituality.

Fulfilled Families

Happy Mother's Day!

The book of Ruth is a beautiful story of God's work in the life of a woman named Naomi.  I suppose that she didn't want to be anything more than a wife and mother, but over time she lost her home, her husband and her sons.

Rather than this being the end of her story, it was the beginning. God started there to provide her blessings beyond her wildest dreams.

When we come to the end of ourselves we will see God work in his power to provide beyond our wildest dreams.

Wrong Side of History

I recently read an essay by former president Jimmy Carter (originally published in 2009) explaining his decision to leave the Southern Baptist Church over their historic practice of excluding women from the roles of pastor or deacon in the churches or as chaplains in the military.

According to Carter there is no difference between between this continued practice in the SBC and the brutality against women in Islamic states around the world. To take the Biblical instructions on the Christian family and the Christian church literally is a sham and an excuse for all kinds of abuse and enslavement.  So Carter rejects the Christian church and instead identifies himself as one of "The Elders" ordained by the late Nelson Mandela. These "Elders" have taken it upon themselves to issue a statement that says in part:

“The justification of discrimination against women and girls on grounds of religion or tradition, as if it were prescribed by a Higher Authority, is unacceptable.”

Carter makes many errors in his essay, but the gravest error is his allegiance to modern humanistic rationalism over divinely inspired scriptures.  He stands with them to wave his fist in the face of God and to tell God what is acceptable and unacceptable.

I think this essay was resurrected now - fifteen years after it was written - to support the continued avalanche of humanistic rationalism in support of so called "civil rights" for homosexuals. The particular issues are changed, but the reasoning remains the same. Just take "women and girls" out of the above quote and substitute any modern identity group.

Unfortunately, many people, especially young people, who (like Carter) have grown up in churches and have been taught the truth of God's word are now choosing to side with humanistic rationalism. They are very concerned about being caught on "the wrong side of history."

"The wrong side of history" means that they think the most important thing is what other people think about an issue.  When people write history books a generation from now - who will be portrayed as the villains and who will be cast as the heroes?  They think (and they may be right) that people like former president Carter or supreme court justice Ginsberg will be the courageous heroes who stood against the evil oppression of religious people that claimed a higher authority for their beliefs than humanistic rationalism.

I think it is not very important what the historians think about us. By then we will be dead - long gone.  By then the only thing that will really matter for us is whether or not we were right about God. If there is no God (as secularists emphatically insist) then whatever stance you took on these issues will not matter at all.  But if there is a God (as is apparent to the vast majority of human beings) then it will be vitally important to have been in a right relationship with the God that truly exists.

I may end up on the "wrong side of history," but I believe I am on the right side of eternity.