Gregory Koukl's Blog, page 74
October 30, 2014
October 29, 2014
Survey Reveals a Whole Lot of Heresy in Evangelicalism
Christianity Today reports on a survey commissioned by Ligonier Ministries to assess Americans’ theological beliefs:
Most American evangelicals hold views condemned as heretical by some of the most important councils of the early church.
A survey released today by LifeWay Research for Ligonier Ministries “reveals a significant level of theological confusion,” said Stephen Nichols, Ligonier’s chief academic officer. Many evangelicals do not have orthodox views about either God or humans, especially on questions of salvation and the Holy Spirit, he said.
Evangelicals did score high on several points. Nearly all believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead (96%), and that salvation is found through Jesus alone (92%). Strong majorities said that God is sovereign over all people (89%) and that the Bible is the Word of God (88%).
They also believe in “the Trinity,” but they don’t know what it means:
Almost all evangelicals say they believe in the Trinity (96%) and that Jesus is fully human and fully divine (88%).
But nearly a quarter (22%) said God the Father is more divine than Jesus, and 9 percent weren’t sure. Further, 16 percent say Jesus was the first creature created by God, while 11 percent were unsure….
But if evangelicals sometime misunderstand doctrines about Jesus, the third member of the Trinity has it much worse. More than half (51%) said the Holy Spirit is a force, not a personal being. Seven percent weren’t sure, while only 42 percent affirmed that the Spirit is a person….
Ligonier’s Nichols said that while the survey results are disappointing, they’re not unique to our time or culture, or irreversible. “The church in every age has faced theological confusion and heresy. In this survey we see a wake-up call to the church. We cannot assume the next generation—or even this present one—will catch an orthodox theology merely by being in the church,” he said.
You can read more about the survey, including an infographic on the “State of Theology” in America and links to the survey and key findings, at Ligonier. The infographic compares the results for all Americans with those for self-described Evangelicals and gives a good idea of which ideas we need to do a better job at explaining, defending, and promoting.
October 28, 2014
Links Mentioned on the 10/28/14 Show
The following are links that were either mentioned on this week's show or inspired by it, as posted live on the @STRtweets Twitter feed:
Slate: Don't Let the Doctor Assign a Gender to Your Newborn by Amy Hall
The Truth Test by Marvin Olasky
Transgender Surgery Isn't the Solution by Paul McHugh
Vaccination and Abortion by Steve Hays and Paul Manata
Life Training Institute podcast on the ethics of using vaccines derived through cell lines obtained by abortions
My Right to Death with Dignity at 29 by Brittany Maynard
Of Michael Landon and Brittany Maynard by Wesley J. Smith
Listen to today's show or download any archived show for free. (Find links from past shows here.)
To follow the Twitter conversation during the live show (Tuesdays 4:00–7:00 p.m. PT), use the hashtag #STRtalk.
Challenge: Jesus Can’t Be God
This week’s challenge comes from a Muslim:
The following may offend Christians. But I am just pointing out the truth.
Christians say Jesus is God, but how could he have been God if he worshipped God?
Also God is eternal and you claim that Jesus dies whereas God can't die.
Jesus was human and had human features. We all know that God is different than us humans in every way.
Jesus said to several tribes to worship God alone and he never once said he was God.
What do you think? Can you answer this person’s questions? Tell us how you would respond to this challenge in the comments below, and we’ll post Alan’s answer on Thursday.
[Update: View Alan's video response. Explore past challenges here and here.]
October 27, 2014
How Do You Balance “Trust Me, I’m Your Parent” with Healthy Skepticism?
Is it better to teach our kids what to believe, or is it better to let them figure it out on their own?
October 25, 2014
Is All Saints' Day on November 1st Because of a Pagan Festival?
On Tuesday’s podcast, Greg talked to Angie Mosteller about her Christian Origins of Halloween pamphlet. Here’s an excerpt from an article on Halloween from her website, Celebrating Holidays:
The name Halloween is a blending of the words All Hallows’ Eve or Even (referring to the evening before All Saints’ Day on November 1). The term hallow means “holy” – you may recall reciting it in the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name” (Matthew 6:9).
From the early days of the church, saints (more specifically martyrs – the only persons initially recognized as saints) were honored and celebrated. However, with time, the growing number of martyrs (particularly under the persecution of Diocletian, the Roman Emperor from 284-305 AD) made it impossible to assign a separate celebration for each. Thus, various churches made an effort to select a common day to commemorate all the saints….
Many scholars claim that Gregory III chose to commemorate the saints on November 1 in order to combat an ancient pagan Celtic festival called Samhain that was celebrated on the same day. However, Samhain seems to have been a tradition limited to the Northern Celtic people (particularly in Ireland and Scotland), and since these areas were Christianized by this time, it is difficult to substantiate this assertion. Furthermore, it should be noted that the Irish celebrated saints on April 20, “a chronology that contradicts the widely held view” that Rome adopted the November 1 date under Celtic influence. Lastly, if remnants of pagan practices remained only in the remote parts of Christian lands, they were probably not of particular concern to the Christian leadership in Rome. Scholar Francis X. Weiser believes that November 1 was chosen so that the many pilgrims who traveled to Rome for the Feast “could be fed more easily after the harvest than in the spring.”
Samhain (pronounced sow-in) is a name derived from Old Irish that roughly means “summer’s end.” Practically speaking, it was a time to prepare for the harvest, shelter (and slaughter) animals, welcome home soldiers and kings, and generally reorganize communities in preparation for the coming cold weather.
Whatever claims are made about the ancient pagan celebration of Samhain are purely speculative. There were no written records among the northern Celtic people prior to their Christianization in the 5th century. Early Roman sources from the first century BC note the superstitious nature of the Celts and how they would celebrate their festivals with fire and sacrifices (both animal and human), but there is no specific mention of Samhain….
[T]here is no indication that ancient Samhain was ever a festival of the dead or dedicated to some Lord of the Dead.
October 24, 2014
God Ends Suffering in His Own Time
How amusing and humbling it is for us to read Moses’ plaintive cry to God after his obedient attempts to help his people leads to an increase in their suffering:
O Lord, why have You brought harm to this people? Why did You ever send me? Ever since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has done harm to this people, and You have not delivered Your people at all.
It’s amusing because we know what comes next in the story. In just a few pages, we will see the most dramatically miraculous rescue of a people from slavery the world has ever seen, but here is a confused and desperate Moses, declaring, “You have not delivered Your people at all,” right before it all takes place.
It’s humbling because we know we’re just like Moses. And we’re just like the disciples, who, on the eve of being rescued from slavery to sin and death, thought Jesus had not delivered them at all.
I can’t tell you what comes next in your story, but here’s what’s coming up in our story:
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”
And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”
Yes, for now, we have “momentary, light affliction.” We’re given less straw and forced to make just as many bricks. We’re mocked. We’re run out of town. We’re put in jail. We’re kidnapped. We’re tortured. We’re beheaded. But the “eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison” that will interrupt and put an end to suffering will be even more dramatically filled with justice for evil and undeserved grace for God’s people than ten plagues and a parting of the sea. Let’s not give up now in the despair of “You have not delivered Your people at all!” Let’s wait a few pages.
October 23, 2014
How to Turn Your Theology into Communion with God
When Tim Keller was interviewed about his new book, Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God, here’s what he had to say about turning your theology into communion with God through biblical meditation and prayer:
Biblical meditation means, first, to think out your theology. (That means having it clearly in your mind. Know what you believe.) Second, it means to work in your theology. (That means self-communion, talking to yourself. For example, “Why are you cast down, O my soul?” It is asking yourself, “How would I be different if I took this theological truth seriously? How would it change my attitudes and actions if I really believed this from the bottom of my heart?”) Third, it means to pray up your theology. (That means turning your theology into prayer, letting it trigger adoration, confession, and supplication.) Do those things, and your theology will intersect with your experience….
It should go without saying—but I will say it—that what I mean by “meditation” is not any of the contemplative practices that aim at getting beyond words and rational thought into pure awareness of our oneness with God. Biblical meditation, rather, is filling the mind with Scripture and then “loading the heart” (to use John Owen’s phrase) with it until it affects not only the emotions but the entire life.
October 22, 2014
Get Back to Reading and Believing the Scriptures
One of the pitfalls of the intellectual life described by Brett yesterday had to do with the downside of developing “a critical and skeptical eye toward ideas.” Continuing on that point today, it’s worth considering C. Michael Patton’s “Ten Reasons Good Christians Go Bad,” where he notes the danger of being overly critical not just of ideas in general, but of the very Word of God:
I see this so often with apologists. So many times we seek to present ourselves as those who are not naive. We want people to see us as seeking rational justification for everything we do and believe. This becomes unhealthy and destructive to the Christian life when we build a methodology which puts the Bible on the witness stand at every point. “I am not going to believe this verse until it is rationally justified on its own merits.” The idea here is that God is guilty of falsehood until proven innocent (although we would never put it that way). In doing so, we think we are doing God a favor.
However, after a while, this will tear our faith apart. We don’t need rational justification for everything we believe. Hang with me. Just think if you did this with your spouse. What if everything Kristie said to me needed to be questioned. “I am going to pick up the kids,” she says to me. “I don’t believe you unless you can prove it,” I respond. “Dinner is ready,” she says. “We will see about that,” I think to myself. At some point in our marriage, Kristie earned the right to be trusted. I don’t need to critically evaluate everything she says. If I did, our relationship would fall apart.
Some of you have quit believing the Lord and the Scriptures. You put everything in a queue of future belief. But there is a point when you decide that God and the Bible are trustworthy and you set aside the critiques. It is not a matter of “just believing” for no reason at all. It is a matter of “just believing” because God is trustworthy. Some of you need to get back to reading and believing the Scriptures.
You can read his other nine reasons here.
October 21, 2014
Links Mentioned on the 10/21/14 Show
The following are links that were either mentioned on this week's show or inspired by it, as posted live on the @STRtweets Twitter feed:
Celebrating Holidays – Angie Mosteller's website
Christian Origins of Halloween by Angie Mosteller
Christmas: Celebrating the Christian History of Classic Symbols, Songs, and Stories by Angie Mosteller
reTHINK Student Conference – Recap by Brett Kunkle
No Hint of Politics (PDF) by Greg Koukl
How the Equal Rights Ordinance Compromise Is a Net Positive for the LBGT Community – Free Press Houston
God's Lesser Glory: The Diminished God of Open Theism by Bruce Ware
Listen to today's show or download any archived show for free. (Find links from past shows here.)
To follow the Twitter conversation during the live show (Tuesdays 4:00–7:00 p.m. PT), use the hashtag #STRtalk.
