Justin Taylor's Blog, page 43

A Better Story: God, Sex, and Human Flourishing

Glynn Harrison—formerly Professor and Head of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Bristol, UK, where he was also a practicing Consultant Psychiatrist—is an insightful Christian author on culture, the human condition, and Scripture.

In January 2017 Inter-Varsity Press (UK) published his book A Better Story: God, Sex, and Human Flourishing.

 

In this work Harrison argues that the architects of the sexual revolution won over the popular imagination of Western culture because they knew the power of story. Drawing together radical new ideologies, many of them complex and hard to grasp, and melding them into the simpler structure of story, the sexual-revolutionaries cast narratives that appealed to the moral instincts of ordinary, decent people. This moral vision overwhelmed the church and silenced its faltering apologists.

Christians who still believe they have good news in the sphere of sexual ethics, Harrison argues, have two significant tasks before them: (1) work out what has gone  wrong, both in our understanding and application of what the Bible teaches and the way we have presented our beliefs to the non-churched; and (2) offer a better story, one that fires the imagination with such force that people will say, “I want that to be true.”

This book, then, seeks to offer a confident, biblically rooted moral vision which needs to be shared with prayer and courage.

What follows is a recap of the key points for each chapter of the book.

Part 1
A Better Understanding

1. REVOLUTION IS MY NAME

How radical individualism went mainstream

The sexual revolution refers to the overturning and liberalization of long-established social and moral attitudes to sex and marriage. It began in the 1960s and continues to the present day.
Big social and cultural changes brought about by post-war prosperity and radical new forms of individualism interacted (“culture and psyche make each other up”) to give birth to this revolution and then drive it forward.
The general concept of individualism (the value and responsibility of each individual person) is grounded in Christian tradition. Provided it remains anchored in broader values of community and mutuality, individualism benefits human well-being and flourishing.
Today’s radical individualism, however, heightens the sovereignty of the individual over all other sources of authority. This has shifted our culture in favor of individualistic approaches to a wide range of issues, with far-reaching changes to how we think about morality and human identity.

2. THE IDEOLOGY OF THE REVOLUTION

How radical individualism changed the way we think

Even though the human mind is easily tricked and susceptible to emotions, ideas still have great power.
Radical individualism is a modern form of ancient Gnosticism. Gnosticism is about discovering, and then expressing, the ‘inner you’ hidden beneath layers of cultural and religious control.
The new Gnosticism says people act properly – that is, authentically – when they freely express their inner true self. The rejection of external authority and the free expression of sexual interests become a kind of moral good and source of flourishing.
This way of thinking laid the foundation for gender ideology, a radical re-imagination of the meaning of bodily sexual differentiation. Gender ideology makes gender something located in people’s inner feelings rather than something grounded in their (untrustworthy) external bodies. In this worldview, being fully human and truly flourishing means going with your inner feelings, rather than following these externally imposed norms.

3. THE MORAL VISION OF THE REVOLUTION

How radical individualism changes the way we think about right and wrong

Emotionally charged, instinctive, gut-level reactions play an important role in the way we make up our minds about moral issues.
While these gut responses help us to make everyday decisions without getting bogged down in too much analysis, they also support lazy thinking. And they can be dangerously wrong.
People on all sides of the debates about sex often hold strong views based on gut reactions that are badly thought through. Christians (and their critics too) need to be more self-aware and prepared to think through their moral convictions.
On matters of ethics and morality, radical individualism shifts people’s gut intuitions away from those that uphold general sacred principles (such as the sanctity of life) towards those that respond to individual needs (such as compassion and concern for fairness). As a result, people’s moral concerns often revolve around the needs of the few rather than those of the many.
Orthodox Christians need to talk about general moral principles in ways that connect with people’s individualistic concerns for compassion and fairness. In other words, they need to show how their moral convictions bring compassion, justice and fairness for the many, as well as for the few.

4. THE STORYTELLERS OF THE REVOLUTION

How activists used great stories to move people’s moral elephants

Stories have the ability to grab people’s attention, connect with their emotions, and open them up to the possibility of change. The change-makers of the sexual revolution understood this. They condensed complex intellectual arguments into memorable bite-size messages, and then wove them together into great stories.
Biopics and dramas that portray heroic struggle appeal to today’s individualistic way of moral thinking. By evoking empathy with their principal character, they draw out those moral instincts that care about individual needs, rather than those that appeal to the ‘big’ sacred values underpinning the welfare of the community as a whole.
Much of the success of the sexual revolution can be attributed to its use of the entertainment industry as its main weapon of cultural subversion. But real-life stories of costly resistance and selfless compassion had a powerful impact in kindling people’s individualistic moral reactions as well.
Christians need to think hard before responding to culture change solely with more argument; they need more (and better) culture that tells its own stories. They must embody ways of life that show how their sacred values and convictions work to serve the needs of the many as well as the few.

5. THE NARRATIVE OF THE REVOLUTION

How the revolution hooked our inner hero and promised abundant life

The core narrative of the sexual revolution has a broadly three-part structure: heroic individualism; a redemptive trajectory; a clear moral vision.
This narrative connects strongly with ordinary people because of its appeal to the heart through the moral instincts of compassion and the defeat of oppression.
Orthodox Christians must rediscover a narrative that appeals to the heart as well as the head. They will need to find a way of confronting the appeal of individualism while offering a convincing redemptive trajectory of their own.

6. THE WARRIORS OF THE REVOLUTION

How activists played a key role in making the revolution happen

Activists and advocacy organizations have played an important role in the success of the sexual revolution, sometimes using insights from the social sciences to develop techniques of persuasion.
Advocacy groups paid careful attention to building a sense of pride and ownership of their beliefs within their own communities. This not only sustained their convictions in the face of opposition, but also underpinned the development of authentic stories of what this way of life can actually look like.
The new shame culture of social media offered added traction to the ability of activists to portray their opponents as morally deficient. At the same time they offered a strong moral alternative as a face-saving formula for falling into line.
As these activities are likely to continue, orthodox Christians need to think about how to strengthen their own beliefs and the cohesion of their own communities. They could start by learning from the activists who have opposed them so successfully.

7. THE CASUALTIES OF THE REVOLUTION

Why surviving as a minority means you need to start acting like one

Human beings are dangerous conformists who find it hard to swim against the flow. The experience of being an immoral, as well as a cognitive, minority creates an overwhelming social pressure to conform.
The most vulnerable individuals are the more empathic and those whose views are less well formed intellectually. Cognitive minorities who fail actively to sustain and nurture the plausibility of their ideas put their members at serious risk. Those individuals who are most empathic will be the first to depart, leaving a remnant inclined to ‘black-and-white’ thinking and authoritarian diktat.
In today’s culture Christians face a double jeopardy of shame from their own internal shame structures and their experience as an immoral minority in wider society. Young people are especially susceptible and are likely to vote with their feet.
These dynamics underscore the need for orthodox Christians to begin to act like a minority. Convictions and distinctive modes of life must be actively nurtured and sustained. This involves empathic opinion leaders capable of winning hearts and minds in a robust defence of their convictions. It also requires that minority beliefs are made plausible and real in the lived experience of creative and internally supportive communities.


Part 2
A Better Critique

8. THE PLANK IN YOUR OWN EYE

A Christian critique of the sexual revolution must begin with honest self-examination

A Christian response to the sexual revolution needs to begin with honest self-examination. The fear and shame that has marked much Christian culture in the area of sex and relationships isn’t just harmful and repressive, it is unbiblical. And these attitudes, in part, helped lay the foundations of the revolution.
Orthodox Christians often draw a line in the sand at the so-called hot-button moral issues (such as same-sex attraction) while turning a blind eye to bigger problems of divorce and separation and the prevalence of sex outside marriage in their own ranks.
We need to be sensitive to our motives when we critique the sexual revolution, and ensure that our moral stance is grounded in a clear understanding of the biblical narrative rather than gut reactions fuelled by shame and fear.
There can be no “going-backery” to some bucolic paradise of the 1950s that never actually existed. The sexual revolution is forcing us to rethink our grasp of the biblical moral vision. It is an opportunity rather than a problem, and we should be ready to seize it.

9. SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY

The revolution promised more and better sex, but failed to deliver

It is difficult to measure what is really going on in people’s sex lives, so we need to treat media claims with caution and look carefully at what the data actually say.
Surveys provide a consistent picture that rather than having more and better sex, the reverse is actually the case. Nobody knows why this is happening, but clearly the sexual revolution is failing to deliver on one of its central promises.
Although more people are living alone, there is little evidence to suggest that they live happier, more fulfilling lives. Our modern preference for ‘bowling alone’ undermines community, civic society and wider human flourishing. And the consequences are eternal.

10. WAR ON THE WEAK

How kids pay the price of their parents’ freedoms

Access to the key resources that foster the development and well-being of children—cohesive communities, great schools and strong families—is unequal and unfair, and the situation is deteriorating fast.
While several factors are responsible for this injustice, the retreat from marriage over recent decades has played a critical role. A stable home life, built on a committed relationship of two biological parents, is associated with a range of better life chances for kids.
Divorce isn’t the biggest threat for kids today, but rather the seemingly unstoppable rise of cohabitation. Cohabiting relationships are much less stable, and instability damages the social and emotional health of children.
While it is impossible to prove conclusively, there is evidence that marriage has a ‘magic’ of its own in helping to build stronger families. Marriage creates a culture that binds men to their responsibilities for the children they help to bring into the world; it fosters expectations that boys and men will develop virtues of commitment and faithfulness.
The pornographication of childhood is almost symbolic of the revolution’s inability to provide a moral framework robust enough for true human flourishing. The revolution has a clear idea of what it is against, but what is it for? Beyond vague notions of inclusion and diversity, the revolution seems to have little that is positive to say about the true nature and meaning of sex and sexuality.

11. WHO AM I TODAY?

The treadmill of self-identification

Identity refers to a sense of having an inner core that allows us to move between different roles while retaining a sense of being the same person. It is the inner story that gives meaning and coherence to our lives.
Major cultural and technological changes mean that it is increasingly difficult to form and sustain this inner coherence, and radical individualism is making it harder than ever. What makes the present moment so unique, however, is the convergence of fast-moving changes that blur the boundaries of reality with a radical individualism that attempts to redefine it.
The resulting confusion heightens risks to mental health and social cohesion. It underpins victimhood identities and growing confusion about our bodies and gender fluidity. These risks may be especially dangerous for young people and children in the most formative years of their lives.


Part 3
A Better Story

12. LIVING IN GOD’S REALITY

Our story begins when we are welcomed into God’s reality

A good narrative puts information and ideas together in ways the mind finds interesting and memorable. So telling a better story about sex and relationships needs to start by gathering together the relevant biblical truths and ideas.
The biblical understanding of sex and relationships is built upon five foundational pillars:

God has spoken, and we don’t need to figure it out for ourselves.
His Word, revealed in the book of nature, and more fully in the revelation of Scripture, welcomes us into his reality, and we flourish as we live with the grain of his reality.
For the Christian, identity is not discovered within or self-constructed, but revealed by God and lived out in his reality.
And finally, whatever happens, God is good. Building our vision on these foundations puts us on the road to flourishing.


In the gospel God restores our identity to us as image-bearing children being conformed to the image of Christ. The more we live in harmony with this calling, working with the grain of God’s reality rather than against it, the more we begin to flourish as followers of Christ.
The road to flourishing is the way of the cross. Submitting to God – learning to be his creature – is hard, especially in today’s culture of entitlement. But at the cross we see that God is good; we can trust him even when goodness is hard to see. And, enduring to the end, we shall see the face of God.

13. THE END OF LONGING

How our sexual desires connect us with heaven

14. THE END OF SHAME

How the biblical vision of sex confronts shame and puts the gospel on display

The Bible does not teach that there will be no marriage in heaven. Rather, it teaches there will be one marriage in heaven – between Christ and his bride, the church.
When we “look into” our sexual desires, we see the passionate nature of God’s love for us. And when we “look along” them, they point us to the reality that one day all our longings, all our desires, will be fulfilled in the consummation of the marriage between Christ and his church.
The biblical vision of sex breaks open three pivotal truths about God’s love: it is passionate, always faithful, and ultimately fruitful.
As we allow the gospel to shape and discipline sexual desire, our lived bodily experience puts these truths on display. Just as passion and faithfulness go together in heaven, that’s how it works here on earth too.
Remaining chaste if we are single (whether for a part of, or all, our lives), and faithful to our vows if we are married, bears witness to the faithful character of God’s love. Single people are not asexual. In their self-denial they too put God’s faithful love on display in their body life. Single people also portray the truth that we shall all be single again one day as, finally, we are drawn into the ultimate consummation that takes place between Christ and his bride, the church.

15. FOR THE LIFE OF THE WORLD

How the biblical vision for sex and relationships opens the road to flourishing

In the Christian worldview flourishing is about realizing our potential as human beings made in the image of God. It’s about becoming fruitful, creative and relational human beings, alongside the development of Christlike character.
Moral obedience and human flourishing are bound together by the biblical law of consequences. Given our limited perspective in a fallen world, at an individual level the link isn’t always visible. In the long run, however, the principle is clear. We need to recover our confidence in God’s promise that obedience leads to abundant life. Obedience and self-sacrifice do not diminish us, but rather open the road to true freedom.
Human flourishing is served by God’s gifts of the institutions of the extended family and the local church. These two institutions carry the knowledge of God’s ways down through the generations, and everybody—single and married, young, and old—has a stake in supporting and nurturing them.
Children have paid the price massively for the failed promise of the sexual revolution, and these institutions are especially powerful in serving their needs and protecting their interests.
The institutions of the family and the local church must never become self-serving and inward-looking. They have a crucial role in fulfilling the Christian vocation of bringing life to the whole world.

16. OUR BETTER STORY

Crafting a narrative for hearts as well as minds

The Older I Get, the More Compelling This Argument for the Existence of God Becomes

Philosophers Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli list 20 arguments for the existence of God in their Handbook of Christian Apologetics (IVP, 1994).

When I first read “The Argument from Aesthetic Experience,” I thought it was clever but not compelling.

But the more I have thought about it, the more profound and convincing I have found it to be:

There is the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.

Therefore there must be a God.

They add:

You either see this one or you don’t.

Jacques Barzun’s 10-Point Checklist for Revising Your Prose

Jacques Barzun writes in Simple and Direct: A Rhetoric for Writers that the following set of questions “must be answered favorably to your copy before you can call your revision finished”:

What is the tone of my piece? Have I indulged myself in language that is toplofty, patronizing, technical for mere showing off—or have I been simple and direct throughout, never falsely modest, but always sincere and respectful of the reader?
Is the movement of my prose satisfactory to the mind and the ear? Are my sentences on their feet, varied in rhythm and length, and carrying each its full weight of meaning and implication—or are many of them rendered obscure by my inattention to matching parts or thrown off balance by the weight of modifiers and afterthoughts?
Have I tested and retested the meaning of each statement of mine to preclude ambiguities? Have I made fast every pronoun to its proper mooring—the slightest error is fatal—or have I allowed my private comprehension of the sense to blind me to one confusion after another?
On the same subject of ambiguity, have I linked modifiers, clauses, and compound sentences in the clearest manner possible—or have I produced a number of danglers, manifest absurdities, and other false leads that will require the reader to start the sentence again and do the work I have left undone?
Can I say, looking at single words, that every one of them means and connotes what I think it does? Or has my diction been spoiled by threadbare clichés, pseudo-technical jargon, unthinking metaphors, and that excess of abstract words known as the noun plague?
Still on the subject of words, have I been strict as well as clear—or have I committed any illiteracies, malapropisms, ludicrous confusions by echo, or heedless jingles by alliteration and rhyming syllables?
I turn now to my theme and ask myself whether the ideas of which it consists have been set down fully and in consecutive order—or have I again relied on my understanding of the subject to bridge over gaps in thought and to disentangle snarls in description?
In the layout of my paper have I devoted space and furnished detail in proportion to the importance of each topic—or have I concentrated on what interested me and skimped the rest, whether owing to a poor outline or the neglect of a good one?
Since readers have in common the desire to be enticed and to experience afterward a sense of acquisition, have I contrived the most engaging opening for my subject and the ending best fitted to leave an impress on the mind? Or do I fumble my way at first and leave matters in the air at the last? To which query I would add: do the divisions of the paper provide breathing spells at once significant and agreeable?
Have I reread my copy and made it both correct and sightly? Or have I been inattentive, ignorant, lazy, and rude about typing, spelling, punctuation, inserts for correction, and other marks for the reader’s convenience?

What Are Worldviews? Why Do Worldviews Matter? How Does One Change Worldviews?

This 20-minute youth seminar at the Ligonier National Conference (February 26, 2016) may be the best little introduction to “worldview” that you’ll find.

James Anderson—associate professor of theology and philosophy at Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte, NC—asks and answers three questions:

What are worldviews?
Why do worldviews matter?
How do worldviews change?

He shows how worldviews are an all-encompassing philosophical view of all reality—representing our fundamental beliefs and assumptions as well as our ultimate values and heart-commitments—and that all of us have them.

He shows why they matter: they play a central and defining role in our thinking about the world, about ourselves, and about other people; and developing and applying a Christian worldview is an essential part of our sanctification as believers, our growth in godliness and spiritual maturity.

Finally, he explains why it means within a Christian worldview for a person to change worldviews.

For a short, accessible, creative guide to worldview thinking, see Dr. Anderson’s book, What’s Your Worldview? An Interactive Approach to Life’s Big Questions (Crossway, 2014).

 

 

Tim Keller Speaks at Google on ‘Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical’

In October 2016 Tim Keller gave a talk at Google, based upon his book Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical. He lays out his case in the first 35 minutes, followed by 20 minutes or so of Q&A.

Keller first spoke at Google in March of 2008 on his earlier book, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism.

Tim Keller Speaks at Google on “Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical”

In October 2016 Tim Keller gave a talk at Google, based upon his book Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical. He lays out his case in the first 35 minutes, followed by 20 minutes or so of Q&A.

Keller first spoke at Google in March of 2008 on his earlier book, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism.

Watch an Entirely Free, Seminary-Level Course with Carl Trueman on the Reformation

Thanks to the generosity and permission of Carl Trueman—Paul Woolley Chair of Church History and professor of church history at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, as well as the author of Luther on the Christian Life—and The Master’s Seminary, you can basically take Professor Trueman’s course online for free. (You just don’t have to take any tests, write any papers, or get any credit!)

I have posted below the heart of the course syllabus, along with all of the lectures, filmed at The Master’s Seminary in January 2017.

Over at the Evangelical History blog, I have posted Professor Trueman’s bibliography for further reading.

Description

This course will introduce student to the major ideas, personalities, and events that shook Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It will consist of lectures and guided reading.

The focus will be on the development of Protestantism in its social, political, and cultural contexts, starting with Luther and the late medieval background and tracing the story through to the birth of modernity in the seventeenth century. En route, the student will study primary texts, art work, Reformation popular culture, and pastoral practices in early modern Protestantism.

In addition, the course is designed to help students to think critically about the past in a way which allows them to think critically about the present. Men and women make history, but they do not make the history that they choose; and only by examining the past forces that shaped the present can we understand ourselves, the world in which we live, and thus mount any response to the challenges that face us today.

Learning Goals

At the conclusion of the course, each student should be able to:

Recognize the key personalities, controversies, and theological developments which marked the Reformation.
Distinguish between the various historic Christian traditions in terms of their distinctive theological convictions as formulated during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Articulate ways in which social and cultural contexts shaped the way the church developed during the Reformation.

Textbooks and Reading Schedule 

Students are expected to obtain a copies of:

Denis R Janz,  A Reformation Reader: Primary Texts With Introductions . Some selections have been assigned, but the whole book is useful as giving short texts relevant to the various topics we will cover.
Carter Lindberg, The European Reformations. 

The numbers appended below to Janz refer to the selection, not the page.

Schaff III is the third volume of P. Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom (free pdf).

The readings from Lindberg are not synchronized with the lectures; they are merely a suggested timetable for taking you through the whole book by the end of the course.

1. Medieval Background and Martin Luther

Janz 14-19
Heidelberg Disputation
Lindberg, Chapters 1-2

2. Martin Luther

Freedom of the Christian
Lindberg, Chapters 3-4

 3. Martin Luther

Exsurge Domine
Janz 25
Lindberg, Chapters 5-6

 4. The Birth of the Reformed Church

Janz 30-37
The Sixty-Seven Articles of Huldrych Zwingli (in Schaff III)
Lindberg, Chapter 7

5. Geneva and Calvin

A Reformation Debate: Sadoleto’s Letter to the Genevans and Calvin’s Reply
Lindberg, Chapter 8

 6. The Spread of Lutheranism and the Reformed Faith

The Augsburg Confession
The Heidelberg Catechism
Lindberg, Chapter 9

7. The English Reformation

The Act of Supremacy (1534)
The Thirty-Nine Articles
Homily on the True and Lively Faith
Lindberg, Chapter 10

8. Reading the Reformation

Luther, On the Jews and Their Lies
Lindberg, Chapter 11

9. The Catholic Reformation

Council of Trent: Bull of Convocation; Fifth and Sixth Session
Ignatius Loyola, Spiritual Exercises
Lindberg, Chapter 12

10. Seventeenth Century Developments: Reformed Confessionalism

Irish Articles of Religion (in Schaff III)
Westminster Directory for Public Worship
Lindberg, Chapter 13

11. Seventeenth Century Developments: Internal Catholic Conflicts

Pascal, Pensées
Lindberg, Chapter 14

12. The Birth of Modernity

Lindberg, Chapter 15

 

Finding God in My Loneliness: A Conversation with Lydia Brownback

It was a real honor for me to sit down with my colleague Lydia Brownback to ask her a few questions about her new book, Finding God in My Loneliness (Crossway, 2017).

Here is what others are saying about the book, followed by the table of contents and a sample chapter.

“I have a great marriage and lots of good friends and a great church family, and yet I often feel lonely. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything on loneliness that seemed to get to the heart of it, or applied any real wisdom to it until Finding God in My Loneliness. Instead of presenting a merely psychological, social, or practical answer, Lydia Brownback provides a profoundly biblical answer to the loneliness we all feel at times, walking readers through the biblical story and ably demonstrating how God works in and through loneliness in the lives of those he calls his own.”

Nancy Guthrie, Bible teacher; author, Hearing Jesus Speak into Your Sorrow

“We used to know who the lonely people were—young singles living solo in small apartments, aging shut-ins, or those sequestered away by illness. It’s not that way anymore. In a world of frenetic activity, loneliness is an epidemic that is impacting everyone. It’s why Lydia Brownback’s new book is urgently needed—too many people, especially women, are suffocating for lack of real and meaningful friendships. Christians can make the difference, though, and Finding God in My Loneliness speaks not only to the solitary heart, but also to those who desire to reach out, embrace, and fill the space. A remarkable book with a culturally timely message!”

Joni Eareckson Tada, Founder and CEO, Joni and Friends International Disability Center

“At some level—ever since Genesis 3—every human being experiences the pain of isolation and alienation. Lydia grapples honestly with various loneliness-inducing life seasons and circumstances. And she helps us understand how our loneliness can be redeemed by the Friend who endured the ultimate loneliness for our sakes, and who anoints us with the oil of joy as we walk in union and communion with him.”

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author; Host, Revive Our Hearts

“Brownback illuminates sources of loneliness and encourages Christian readers to lean on God when they feel lonely. She contends that readers cannot fix their loneliness, a statement that might disappoint those expecting self-help advice. Brownback gives relatable examples of the various causes of loneliness, including grief, losing a sense of home, and being different. She uses her own experience of single life, and observations of others’ marriages, to craft a particularly effective pair of chapters on the loneliness of marriage versus the loneliness of being unmarried. Brownback maintains, women must learn to trust in God’s plan and goodness. Brownback’s encouraging book is a sharp, thoroughly readable entreaty to readers looking for grace in loneliness.”

Publishers Weekly

“I love this book. It is full of truth. Regardless of whether you’re married or single, eighty years old or eighteen, man or woman, rich or poor, Western or Eastern, everyone will face loneliness at one time or another. Brownback tells us that the main reason we get lonely is because we’re not home yet. She helps us to see that only when we find our significance, security, and comfort in Christ will we realize that we are never alone. Reading this book set off a gospel bomb of joy and hope in my heart. I urge everyone to read it immediately and meditate on these truths for a lifetime.”

Dave Furman, Senior Pastor, Redeemer Church of Dubai; author, Being There: How to Love Those Who Are Hurting

“At one time or another, all of us experience loneliness—not just solitude, but loneliness. In this unique and valuable study, Lydia Brownback draws from Scripture and experience to uncover the heart issues and responses that lead lonely Christians in healthy or unhealthy directions. Without downplaying the inescapable loneliness of living in a fallen world, Finding God in My Loneliness nonetheless finds abiding hope in the friendship of Jesus Christ.”

Philip Graham Ryken, President, Wheaton College; author, Loving the Way Jesus Loves

“Young or old, wealthy or poor, married or single, loneliness can dishearten and discourage. Lydia Brownback writes with compassion and insight into the causes of our loneliness, as well as helps us understand God’s redemptive work in the midst of it. If you’re struggling with feeling like you’re the only one, Finding God in My Loneliness is the book for you.”

Melissa Kruger, Women’s Ministry Coordinator, Uptown Church, Charlotte, North Carolina; author, The Envy of Eve; Editor, The Gospel Coalition; blogger, Wit’s End

Table of Contents

Introduction: Why Are We Lonely?

Part 1: Loneliness Reinforced

Treasuring the Wrong Treasure
The Lies of Loneliness

Part 2: Loneliness Realized

The Loneliness of Leaving
The Loneliness of Night
The Loneliness of Obedience
The Loneliness of Running Away
The Loneliness of Grief
The Loneliness of Being Different
The Loneliness of Being Unclean
The Loneliness of Misplaced Love
The Loneliness of Marriage
The Loneliness of Being Unmarried

Part 3: Loneliness Redeemed

In the Family of God’s People

Conclusion: The Man of Sorrows

The Quest to Make Abortion Unthinkable Is Not Just a White Evangelical Issue

A good word from Pastor Thabiti Anyabwile at the VoxProject:

A Christian Vision for the 21st Century

The closing to a sermon by the great Old Princeton theologian B.B. Warfield (1851-1921):

He was not led by His divine impulse out of the world, driven back into the recesses of His own soul to brood morbidly over His own needs, until to gain His own seemed worth all sacrifice to Him.

He was led by His love for others into the world, to forget Himself in the needs of others, to sacrifice self once for all upon the altar of sympathy.

Self-sacrifice brought Christ into the world.

And self-sacrifice will lead us, His followers, not away from but into the midst of men.

Wherever men suffer, there will we be to comfort.

Wherever men strive, there will we be to help.

Wherever men fail, there will be we to uplift.

Wherever men succeed, there will we be to rejoice.

Self-sacrifice means not indifference to our times and our fellows: it means absorption in them.

It means forgetfulness of self in others.

It means entering into every man’s hopes and fears, longings and despairs: it means manysidedness of spirit, multiform activity, multiplicity of sympathies.

It means richness of development.

It means not that we should live one life, but a thousand lives,—binding ourselves to a thousand souls by the filaments of so loving a sympathy that their lives become ours.

It means that all the experiences of men shall smite our souls and shall beat and batter these stubborn hearts of ours into fitness for their heavenly home.

It is, after all, then, the path to the highest possible development, by which alone we can be made truly men. Not that we shall undertake it with this end in view. This were to dry up its springs at their source. We cannot be self-consciously self-forgetful, selfishly unselfish.

Only, when we humbly walk this path, seeking truly in it not our own things but those of others, we shall find the promise true, that he who loses his life shall find it.

Only, when, like Christ, and in loving obedience to His call and example, we take no account of ourselves, but freely give ourselves to others, we shall find, each in his measure, the saying true of himself also: “Wherefore also God hath highly exalted him.”

The path of self-sacrifice is the path to glory.