For a while this morning, CNN.com had a front page link to this article by columnist LZ Granderson (who is a frequent contributor on ESPN.com) arguing that it’s a bias against gays – not Biblical convictions – that powers the arguments of those who are against homosexuality.  His evidence?  The fact that people are up in arms about homosexuality, but not about other issues raised in Leviticus, such as the mandate that adultery is punishable by death.  This ‘Christians pick and choose’ argument is picking up steam lately, usually making some variation on the point that gay rights advocates will start taking us seriously when we stop eating pork and shellfish. 

Granderson’s case is not without its point.  There are indeed some professing Christians who react vociferously against gay marriage while remaining totally ignorant of the Bible.  However, the great irony of Granderson’s article is that it falls victim to the very shortcoming it accuses his opponents of – biblical ignorance.  While Granderson treats his comprehensive look at the Levitical law as some sort of ’gotcha’ argument against conservative Christians, he neglects to consider basic theological concepts like the applicability of the various aspects of the Old Testament law or even numerous New Testament verses that address homosexual practice as sin.  Though his argument plays really well to a biblically-illiterate American populace, it’s every bit as ignorant as the people who so bother him. 

The whole issue should serve as a reminder to Christians that knowing God’s word and wielding it rightly matters.  Arguments like Granderson’s aren’t going anywhere, and our culture – and even the people within our churches – is buying them hook, line and sinker.  After reading Granderson’s article, how would you respond to him?  If you’re not sure, take that as a call to dig deeper into God’s word, where truth is waiting to be found – even if it rarely plays well as a political soundbite.

Lately, I’ve been working through some of the recent books by Al Mohler.  Over the weekend, I finished Culture Shift, a collection of essays by Mohler on several current-issues topics reflecting the state of our culture over the past decade.  Mohler is no stranger as a cultural commentator, having made countless appearances on Larry King Live and other major media outlets.  One thing I’ve always admired about him, from before I ever even started at Boyce, was the sharp clarity and careful thought that he always displayed in dealing with hot-button issues.  As a teenager, I remember being used to seeing shouting heads on CNN anytime issues of morality were discussed but seeing Mohler as a breath of fresh air and a compelling voice for Biblical truth.  Now, over ten years later, Mohler’s voice is as clear as ever.

I suspect (though I can’t confirm) that these 20 essays are reproduced at least in part from Mohler’s blog, as I vaguely recollected reading some of them before.  Mohler brings biblical wisdom to bear on topical issues like abortion, torture and race relations, and the undergirding philosophical shifts that have had an undeniable mark on our society.  He discusses each topic in precise fashion and its always easy to trace the rationale that brings him to each conclusion.  The downside of the book (and I’m finding myself feeling this way about each of his books, so this is likely more a case of my familiarity with Mohler than anything else) is that there’s not much here that was new to me after a decade of reading and hearing Mohler in both his Seminary and public contexts.  Rather than painting a new picture of understanding, this book simply filled in and rounded out the picture I already had.  Want a case study in how to think carefully as a Christian regarding the issues of our day?  You won’t do much better than this.  However, if you’ve been a regular on Mohler’s blog over the years, you might want to go ahead and take a pass.

“When we say church, I’d implore us to think people – and not just people, but by defninition, nations.  The church is a multiethnic thing.  But let me be clear, it is not only inescapably multiethnic, biblically, but it’s not multicultural.   It is multiethnic, but it is monocultural, and it’s not any of our native cultures.  It’s this new way of being that God is creating through Christ in the gospel.  It is a gospel culture.”

- Thabiti Anyabwile

As we move forward in church planting, one of our big points of discussion as a team has been exactly what our denominational and network relationships should look like.  This article in World Magazine by Anthony Bradley is good food for thought.  Here’s an excerpt…

If your denomination is 25-years-old or older, it is has likely peaked and plateaued in terms of numbers and influence—unless you are from a Pentecostal or Charismatic tradition. The pace of social change is faster in our era than ever before and denominations cannot keep up. As denominations grow they become slow, more bureaucratic, less creative, and less innovative. Denominations increasingly become centered on preserving their institutions while ignoring needed reforms to address social change. As such, the generation that initially grew the denomination becomes the primary target audience. As that population ages and become culturally leveraged, so follows the denomination they helped to grow.

Whatever your denominational stripes, may we ever strive to stay faithful to Jesus and Jesus alone.

HT: Vitamin Z

As I prepare to enter the world of church planting, I’m spending my time reading just about everything of use I can get my hands on.  After tackling Ed Stetzer and J.D. Payne at the end of last year, I’ve moved on to Mark Driscoll for the beginning of 2010.  Last week, I finished his book The Radical Reformission, with Confessions of a Reformission Rev. now on the slate.  If the latter is as good as the former, it’ll be a worthwhile read.

In The Radical Reformission, Driscoll seeks to lay out exactly what kind of challenge awaits the modern church.  The culture has moved on without us, seeing the church as an archaic dinosaur from decades gone by with little to no relevance for today’s world.  Much of that, Driscoll argues, is due to the standoffish way we’ve approached our culture over the years.  The temptation, then, is to plunge headfirst into cultural accommodation to try to win back the people we’ve alienated.  Driscoll, however, suggests that will be an empty pursuit, only resulting in winning people back to a worthless and powerless religion.  He argues that we must take the timeless gospel message and change the way we relate it to the world around us.  We must understand the culture in which we live – whether Seattle, Savannah, or Salt Lake City – and contextualize the message with our words and actions so that it can be best communicated to broken people where they’re at.  In his classic raw, witty style, Driscoll offers a way forward to help Christians do exactly that.

From a prospective church planter’s perspective, this was a fantastic “big picture” book.  Driscoll does a great job of spelling out with clarity and precision the cultural picture that we all have to deal with.  He clearly understands modern-day America and he’s got a heart for the people that inhabit it.  Viewing the book through that lens as a “Diagnosing and Reaching Culture 101” text, Driscoll could hardly have done much better.  Older, more tradition-bound Christians should read it as a wake-up call to the realities waiting just outside their church’s door, and younger, boundary-pushing Christians should read it as a strong reminder that the answer to our cultural disconnect isn’t hip ideas and catchy campaigns but rather the timeless message of the Gospel.  The book’s only real weakness stems from the fact that it’s now six years old.  While the culture hasn’t changed that much, Driscoll has, and there were moments in the book where I think 2010 Mark Driscoll might have said things a bit more carefully than 2004 Mark Driscoll.  Nothing glaring, but I can imagine some spots where perhaps someone unfamiliar with the topics could take things the wrong way, seeing Driscoll as more culturally (rather than theologically) driven than he actually is.  All-in-all, though, this is a fantastic read for church planters, pastors, and people who know other people who need Jesus.  Give it a shot.

Quick, when was the last time that God or religion was a major theme in a video game you played?  Having trouble recalling?  While books and films aren’t shy about examining belief, issues of religion and faith tend to be notably absent from videogames.  With the game adaptation of Dante’s Inferno (yes, you read that right) preparing to release in February, Gamespy ran an article yesterday examining why this is the case, and they found many game developers very hesitant to even discuss the issue.  It was an interesting read.  Right now, games are still in their adolesence as a legitimate storytelling medium, but as they continue to mature it will be interesting to see how they approach issues such as faith.  If you’re a gamer, take a minute and go check out the article.

Our culture is at a very interesting point right now.  We’ve retained our traditional view of marriage as a societal structure – good, valuable, meaningful.  Yet, we’ve completely discarded the meaning of marriage and a traditional view of human sexuality, thus stripping marriage of any actual meaning.  I thought about this the other night while Heather and I got caught up on the season premiere of House and I watched the show portray an affair in a tender and generally positive light.  Any problems inherent in the affair were emphasized as practical difficulties (someone could get hurt, it can’t last, etc.) rather than moral failures.  After watching a clip this morning from ABC’s upcoming series V, I started thinking about the last time I saw an engaged couple portrayed in a film or TV show that wasn’t already living together.  I honestly can’t think of one within the last decade (if you can, fire away in the comments).  The point is that while the stories our culture tells still ostensibly value marriage (weddings are always played for emotional highs in dramas), it has been stripped of any real meaning and value. 

Then, today I read a front-page piece on CNN.com about the fading of monogamy.   The article uses recent high-profile affairs like the David Letterman scandal to ask whether lifelong monogamy is an unrealistic expectation for our modern society.  The article seems to give the impression that it is (one interviewed psychiatrist compares the ability to stay faithful for life with the ability to “play the Beethoven violin concerto” or “ice-skate beautifully”) and even ponders whether serial monogamy (having one partner at a time) is too tough, exploring polyamory (openly having multiple sexual partners at the same time) as an alternative option.   Interestingly enough, the article concludes with a couple paragraphs about the benefits of sticking with monogamy – but even those are hopelessly hollow when you realize that they’re merely practical benefits, nothing more.  They are a glaring indication of the fact that we have completely lost any and all reason for an inherent “oughtness” in our view of sexuality.  The sexual revolution is, for all intents and purposes, complete.  Our culture still retains the facade of a Christian view of sex and marriage, but that’s all it is – an empty facade.  There’s nothing holding it up anymore, and thus no common moral ground for us to appeal to on a societal level. 

The article was fascinating to read, and its peer into our culture’s shifting sexual norms should rattle the cage of the church.  While we’re crusading to have traditional marriage codified in law, the very meaning of marriage and our societal foundations for it are evaporating before our eyes.  I have a feeling that we’re in the middle of a major societal shift, and people from ten years ago wouldn’t even recognize the American sexual culture that we’ll see ten years from now.  This means that how we as the church view and practice marriage and sexuality is more important now than ever, and it has nothing to do with passing laws.  Will we by our lives, our marriages and our churches demonstrate the great value, beauty, and goodness of biblical sexuality in a way that draws unbelievers in our culture to the one true God who created sex for his glory and our good?  They’ll hear our negative condemnations, I’m sure, and to an extent they certainly need to.  But even more imporatnt is that we treasure marriage and sexuality in a way that’s God-honoring and incredibly attractive (albeit confusing) to a watching world.  It’s beyond important that we do, because, much like Old Covenant worship in the book of Hebrews, biblical sexuality has become obsolete in our culture – and what has become obsolete is about to pass away.