Gregory Koukl's Blog, page 88

Men Have Forgotten God

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn played a major role in the collapse of the Soviet Union more than two decades ago. He exposed the reality of Soviet prison camps and was also a critic of the West. The basis for his observations was his Christianity.

Solzhenitsyn was a committed communist until he was a young man. He was imprisoned by the Soviets at the end of World War 2 because he'd written something critical in a letter. He became a Christian in prison and began a writing career that would eventually expose the cruelty of the Soviet Union and contribute to its eventual demise. For fear of being punished, he committed his books to memory. After being released from prison in 1956, he found a publisher in the early 60s. His first book was critical of Stalin, which pleased the current government, but his subsequent books showed their cruelty and he fell from favor. He won the Nobel Prize in 1970 and was expelled from his country in 1974. He spent two decades living and writing in Vermont, until he was able to return to Russia in 1994.

He summarized his writing and thinking about what he had experienced and witnessed about communism:

Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened." Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened." (Edward E. Ericson, Jr. "Solzhenitsyn – Voice from the Gulag.")

He also found Western culture wanting because it had abandoned Christian foundations:

At home, Solzhenitsyn had scolded the Soviet leaders for their attempted "eradication of Christian religion and morality" and for substituting an ideology with atheism as its "chief inspirational and emotional hub." But once in the West, he scolded Western elites for discarding "the moral heritage of Christian centuries with their great reserves of mercy and sacrifice" and for substituting "the proclaimed and practiced autonomy of man from any higher force above him."

Scholar Edward E. Ericson, Jr., observes that Solzhenitsyn wrote and spoke from his Christian worldview. His view of God and man is what motivated his influential writings.

Same-Sex Marriage Is "Expanding Our Sense of Possibilities"

“Polyamorists are coming out of the closet,” according to the opening of this article by Celina Durgin. Acceptance of their lifestyle is increasing, but there are still legal obstacles to overcome:

Diana Adams, the other co-president of Open Love NY and a founding partner of a New York City law firm serving LGBTQ and non-traditional clients, has worked with polyamorous households. Sometimes she helps draw up agreements between married poly clients to prevent marital problems from arising because of their sexuality.

The policy concerns for poly community generally regard securing domestic partnerships among the members of a polyamorous relationship. Some of Adams’s poly clients want to opt out of the adultery ground for divorce and do so in out-of-court contracts.

“At this point, polyamorous people are not seeking to redefine marriage as a whole for all Americans,” Adams told NRO. “They are seeking to find stability within existing legal institutions, with creative use of the law as it is now.”

I can think of no consistent reason under the new definition of marriage (“people who intensely care about each other”) why these people should be denied what’s legally available to others. Why should only they have to use the law creatively in order to have their commitments recognized? This inconsistency in the law can’t survive. The reasoning will work itself out to its logical conclusion.

When you remove complementary genders from the definition of marriage, you also remove its natural boundaries (two sexes, two people; a union that creates children, a union that must be exclusive and permanent). Therefore, there’s simply no rational reason to deny polyamorists their “right” to marry under the new definition (even if you think practical problems could result).

As predicted over and over, despite the adamant protests of same-sex marriage promoters to the contrary, the eventual support of multiple-partner marriage will be one of the consequences of changing the meaning—and legal definition—of marriage.

“In almost all cases, I see parents who are exploring their own romantic and sexual possibilities on their own time, and that’s not affecting their children at all,” Adams said. “The same-sex marriage movement has initiated a lot of that conversation. Is it possible to have committed love and partnership without traditional marriage? The conversation is expanding our sense of possibilities.”

[Leon Feingold, co-president of Open Love NY] also acknowledges parallels between the LGBTQ movement and the polyamorous movement. Many consider polyamory an orientation rather than a choice. He called the broad acceptance of polyamory the “next big frontier for public perception to cross.”

Challenge: If God Requires Atonement, He Lacks Something

Here's a question I came across:

God is defined as an Almighty being. An Almighty being does not require atonement (for “sins”). Therefore if God requires atonement as the Bible says, he is imperfect and not Almighty.... In other words, philosophically, the need for atonement indicates a lack of something, which detracts from the perfection which God should have.

Can you clear this up for the questioner? Can you explain what atonement is, why it's necessary, and how it relates to God's perfection? This isn't an overly tricky one, but it does require both an understanding of the doctrine and an ability to explain it clearly and concisely. Give it a try in the comments below, then we'll hear from Brett on Thursday.

[Explore past challenges here and here.]

Just As I Am

I heard a news story on the radio Sunday that the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., had a transgender clergy officiate at their Sunday service for the first time. Someone (the newstory didn't identify him) said that this showed that God loves LGBT people just the way they are. There's an element of truth to this, but it actually distorts the Gospel.

God loves us while are are still sinners. Jesus died for all of us while we are still rebels. He reaches out to us and offers us reconciliation in our current stats as sinners. But once we are reconciled to God, He doesn't leave us just as we are. He calls us out of sin and gives us the Holy Spirit to give us that power.

Jesus told the woman accused of adultery (John 8) that He didn't condemn her in the judicial sense under the Mosaic Law. The required witnesses were there to give evidence. So Jesus told her He didn't condemn her, but He told her to go and sin no more. He didn't tell her He accepted her just as she was. He told her to leave her sinful ways.

He tells all of us that.

Psalm 51 gives us the prayer of a contrite heart. God hears our prayer as sinners, but we ask Him to cleanse our hearts because they're full of sin. While He hears our prayers just as we are, He doesn't leave us as we are.

The false message this person in the news story gave is that our sin doesn't matter in our relationship to God. 

The Gospel is not that God accepts us just as we are. The Gospel is that we're sinners whom God loves and redeems, and gives us the Holy Spirit to live lives that glorify Him and leave sin behind.

Why the First Hospital to Do Sex-Reassignment Surgeries No Longer Does Them

Greg referenced this article by Paul McHugh (former psychiatrist in chief at Johns Hopkins) on the show Tuesday, and it's worth posting an excerpt here, as well:

[P]olicy makers and the media are doing no favors either to the public or the transgendered by treating their confusions as a right in need of defending rather than as a mental disorder that deserves understanding, treatment and prevention. This intensely felt sense of being transgendered constitutes a mental disorder in two respects. The first is that the idea of sex misalignment is simply mistaken—it does not correspond with physical reality. The second is that it can lead to grim psychological outcomes.

The transgendered suffer a disorder of "assumption" like those in other disorders familiar to psychiatrists. With the transgendered, the disordered assumption is that the individual differs from what seems given in nature—namely one's maleness or femaleness. Other kinds of disordered assumptions are held by those who suffer from anorexia and bulimia nervosa, where the assumption that departs from physical reality is the belief by the dangerously thin that they are overweight….

Psychiatrists obviously must challenge the solipsistic concept that what is in the mind cannot be questioned. Disorders of consciousness, after all, represent psychiatry's domain; declaring them off-limits would eliminate the field….

We at Johns Hopkins University—which in the 1960s was the first American medical center to venture into "sex-reassignment surgery"—launched a study in the 1970s comparing the outcomes of transgendered people who had the surgery with the outcomes of those who did not. Most of the surgically treated patients described themselves as "satisfied" by the results, but their subsequent psycho-social adjustments were no better than those who didn't have the surgery. And so at Hopkins we stopped doing sex-reassignment surgery, since producing a "satisfied" but still troubled patient seemed an inadequate reason for surgically amputating normal organs.

It now appears that our long-ago decision was a wise one. A 2011 study at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden produced the most illuminating results yet regarding the transgendered, evidence that should give advocates pause. The long-term study—up to 30 years—followed 324 people who had sex-reassignment surgery. The study revealed that beginning about 10 years after having the surgery, the transgendered began to experience increasing mental difficulties. Most shockingly, their suicide mortality rose almost 20-fold above the comparable nontransgender population. This disturbing result has as yet no explanation but probably reflects the growing sense of isolation reported by the aging transgendered after surgery. The high suicide rate certainly challenges the surgery prescription….

At the heart of the problem is confusion over the nature of the transgendered. "Sex change" is biologically impossible. People who undergo sex-reassignment surgery do not change from men to women or vice versa. Rather, they become feminized men or masculinized women. Claiming that this is civil-rights matter and encouraging surgical intervention is in reality to collaborate with and promote a mental disorder.

Listen to what Greg had to say here (starts at 1:24:40).

What Are the "All Things" Philippians 4:13 Says We Can Do?

If you went to Sunday School as a child, chances are you heard, sang, and memorized-without-even-trying Philippians 4:13: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

But without a knowledge of the context of the verse, it’s also likely you interpreted that to mean, “The sky’s the limit to what I can accomplish when Jesus helps me!” and that’s not exactly what this verse is about. In the spirit of “Never Read a Bible Verse,” here’s the passage in question:

I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, 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.

The secret of enduring all situations—good and bad—with contentment is “Christ who strengthens us.” David Mathis introduces John Piper's short video (below) on the meaning of Philippians 4:13 this way:

[T]he apostle Paul claims, “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content” (Philippians 4:11) — and says it again, “In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.” There is a secret for contentment not just in our greatest triumphs, but also in our deepest devastations.

What is “the secret”? Philippians 4:13 calls it “Christ who strengthens me.” Or, to put it in terms of Philippians 3:8, “the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”

 

Religious Toleration

Thomas Helwys was one of the early Puritans in 17th century England. He and his fellow Protestant believers met in secret to avoid punishment for dissenting with the state religion. Helwys' wife was imprisoned and banished after her sentence.

Helwys wrote the first defense of religious liberty in English, challenging the religious authority of King James I.

Helwys was entirely orthodox in his views on the Trinity and the atonement, but he defended the practice of adult baptism and therefore stood at odds with the state church. (At that time, infant baptism was linked with citizenship.) Helwys's belief in the lordship of Christ over conscience led him to question the authority of both kings and churches. His treatise A Short Declaration of the Mystery of Iniquity (1612) was the first defense of religious liberty in the English language. Here he boldly stated, "The King is a mortal man, and not God, therefore hath no power over the immortal souls of his subjects, to make laws and ordinances for them, and to set spiritual Lords over them." Christ himself is sole Lord in his Church and sole Lord over the consciences of people, and this means that no human being can exercise authority over another's conscience. "For men's religion is between God and themselves. The king shall not answer for it. Neither may the king be judge between God and man. Let them be heretics, Turks, Jews, or whatsoever, it appertains not to the earthly power to punish them in the least measure."

Helwys believed in religious toleration for everyone, including Muslims and Jews.

He was arrested and imprisoned, where he died about 1616 at the age of 40.

Helwys was one of the many voices speaking for religious liberty in the early 17th century, and the Puritans who came to North America established that principal firmly in American values and law.

How to Become a Hero

I can remember reading The Hiding Place (the story of Corrie ten Boom, a woman who risked her life to save Jews during World War II) and desperately praying that I would have Corrie’s courage and self-sacrifice when I'm eventually confronted with a time that requires it.

How does one become such a person? Jonathan Parnell has some thoughts about this on the Desiring God Blog, where he writes about Jon Meis, a young man who risked his life to save his fellow students during the recent shooting at Seattle Pacific Unversity:

Who, then, are the ones like Jon Meis — a student considered a quiet and selfless guy by fellow classmates? What kind of person could actually be willing to step up in the face of danger? The answer may be getting clearer.

The person who’d be willing to put the good of others before himself in the event of great loss is the one who puts the good of others before himself in the hundred events of little losses everyday. “We are always becoming,” as Joe Rigney puts it, “who we will be” (Live Like a Narnian, 52). “Right this minute, we are headed somewhere, and sooner or later, we are bound to end up there” (52).

The person of great sacrifice, therefore, must be the person of little sacrifices — the person who has discovered that the life of sacrificial love is the life of greatest joy. The response of sacrificial love in the midst of panic is the end of a trajectory that gets played out as sacrificial love in the midst of normalcy….

The big moment of courageous action doesn’t occur in a vacuum, but has behind it tiny moments of simple sacrifice that have been trending that direction all along. In other words, if we can’t wash dishes and change diapers, we shouldn’t kid ourselves with the idea that we’d step in front of a bullet. If we are stingy with our time and money toward those in need, we’ll be stingy with our lives when a gun gets pulled on innocent people.

Stories like Jon’s should make us pause and ask whether we’d respond like he did. But the question isn’t what we’d do in a particular situation; it’s about what we’re doing now.

We won’t truly know who we’ve become until we’ve been tested. Until then, pray the Holy Spirit enables us to give up our lives in the everyday moments. “The person of great sacrifice must be the person of little sacrifices.” Now is the time to practice dying by His power, looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith.

[W]hoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant; and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many (Mark 10:43-45).

Links Mentioned on the 6/17/14 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:

The Chronicles of Narnia – Dramatized (The full set will be re-released next year, or buy them separately here.)
Why Surgery Is Not the Answer for Transgender by Denny Burk
9 Things You Should Know about Transgenderism by Joe Carter
Transgender Surgery Isn't the Solution by Paul McHugh
Stephen Meyer's website
Thomas Nagel Likes Meyer's Book by Brett Kunkle
Signature in the Cell by Stephen Meyer
Darwin's Doubt by Stephen Meyer
Unlocking the Mystery of Life – DVD
Darwin's Doubt YouTube page
Journey Inside the Cell – Video
Darwin's Doubt Makes Positive Claims by Amy Hall
Stephen Meyer's Debate with Charles Marshall on Unbelievable
How to Test for Intelligent Design by Amy Hall
Atheist Bradley Monton Defends Intelligent Design by Amy Hall
The Trouble with Theistic Evolution by Melinda Penner
TrueU: Does God Exist? with Stephen Meyer
TrueU: Is the Bible Reliable? with Stephen Meyer
In Search of "Evolution 3.0" by Michelle Teague 
Does Front-End Loading and Theistic Evolution Explain the Information in Life? – Video
Drifting Towards Darwin by Greg Koukl (PDF)

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.

Start Preparing to Defend Marriage within the Church

We usually focus on secular reasons for maintaining the man/woman definition of marriage because there are plenty of publicly accessible reasons to give, and because until now, the people who have needed convincing about the definition of marriage weren’t those who would take the Bible into consideration.

But just because solid arguments can be drawn from natural revelation (i.e., by observing the world around us to discover what marriage is and the consequences of redefining it), that doesn’t mean there aren’t specifically Christian reasons for man/woman marriage that we ought to understand and appreciate as Christians. (See here and here, for example.)

And now that people like Matthew Vines are setting out to persuade Christians that God does not oppose same-sex marriage, it’s more important than ever that we think about how marriage fits into the bigger story of the Bible. It’s more than just a question of interpreting a few Greek terms and a handful of verses.

To that end, here are some thoughts from an interview with N.T. Wright:

With Christian or Jewish presuppositions, or indeed Muslim, then if you believe in what it says in Genesis 1 about God making heaven and earth—and the binaries in Genesis are so important—that heaven and earth, and sea and dry land, and so on and so on, and you end up with male and female. It’s all about God making complementary pairs which are meant to work together. The last scene in the Bible is the new heaven and the new earth, and the symbol for that is the marriage of Christ and his church. It’s not just one or two verses here and there which say this or that. It’s an entire narrative which works with this complementarity so that a male-plus-female marriage is a signpost or a signal about the goodness of the original creation and God’s intention for the eventual new heavens and new earth.

If you say that marriage now means something which would allow other such configurations, what you’re saying is actually that when we marry a man and a woman we’re not actually doing any of that stuff. This is just a convenient social arrangement and sexual arrangement and there it is . . . get on with it. It isn’t that that is the downgrading of marriage, it’s something that clearly has gone on for some time which is now poking its head above the parapet. If that’s what you thought marriage meant, then clearly we haven’t done a very good job in society as a whole and in the church in particular in teaching about just what a wonderful mystery marriage is supposed to be. 

Be prepared for this to become a challenge within the church, just as it has at this church near Biola (where one of my friends used to attend) that recently changed its position on homosexuality and same-sex marriage. Don’t be caught off guard by this; start thinking about it now. Michael Brown has just written Can You Be Gay and Christian? Responding with Love and Truth to Questions about Homosexuality, and SBTS faculty produced an eBook Response to Matthew Vines. Those might be good places to start.