The evidence for mankind creating our own gods through thousands of years is simply overwhelming, and there’s precisely zero evidence that our divine maker—should there turn out to be one, a concept I’m quite willing to consider, actually—is anything like us at all.

danielholter

Oh, I quite agree that man has sought to create his own gods for all of human history. But this doesn’t mean there is not a real one. If anything, your contention strengthens my point rather than weakens it. As C.S. Lewis famously argued, if I find a desire in myself that nothing in this material realm can satisfy, it must be because something immaterial exists that can fulfill it.

(Source: sds)

An argument is like a tool; you only put it down when the job is done. When atheists stop suspending their moral indignation from their invisible sky hook, then I will no longer amuse myself by pointing out their levitation trick.

The issues [of atheism] are important, but no sense getting really worked up over it. If we were all sitting in a used car lot, and one of the F-250 trucks began questioning the existence of Henry Ford, we would all think it was a serious situation, but that is not the same thing as thinking it a serious question.

Douglas Wilson in God Is: How Christianity Explains Everything

This is a very short work, making short work of Hitchens’ well-written but ultimately empty arguments. Wilson presents little new content, but his witty take down of Hitchens (et al) is great fun to read.

Transformation is not optional but mandatory for Christians. This was Lewis’s consistent position. After all, he had undergone his own transformation, discovering “depth under depth of self-love and self admiration” (as he told Arthur right at the beginning of his Christian pilgrimage) and submitting to the lifelong discipline of being purged of such sin. We must die in order to live, lose our lives in order to find them, give up what we think of as ourselves in order to gain our true selves. And this is the most difficult of tasks: as Eustace discovers, our best efforts at self-understanding and self-correction are but feeble; the revelation of who we really are must come from without, and when it does come it devastates us. Then the sin and folly of even our noblest labors and wisest words appear before us with a heartbreaking clarity. For Lewis, Christian unity begins with the recognition that we have all, like Eustace, through our pride and selfishness, made ourselves into dragons. We must then understand that we cannot undragon ourselves—we lack the strength—and after that we must accept that God is ready and willing to undragon us, if we will but allow Him to do so. For Lewis, only those who share this picture of the human predicament and its cure can join together in true unity—can really, and not just nominally, become members of one another in a single Body.

The topic of a Christian understanding of homosexuality and a Christian and pastoral response to homosexuality is related in some ways to a Christian view of singleness. There is a need particularly among Protestant Christians to revisit our view of singleness and how we communicate what it is we value in the local church. If most of our programming is geared toward marriages and families in ways that communicate a devaluing of the single state, we will (perhaps unintentionally) convey to the person who contends with same-sex attractions that they must attain heterosexuality in order to find a spiritual home in the Body of Christ.

(Source: wesleyhill)

So here is the challenge to mainline churches: go back and read the reports you did on human sexuality and the legitimacy of homosexuality, and see if there is anything there which you might be able to use to argue against incest between consenting adults. If there is nothing, then ask yourselves whether you should object to the members of your church practising the same. Indeed, switch `gay’ or `homosexual’ and their cognates for `incest’ and its variations. Does the logic now fail? Does the argument collapse? Are you comfortable with that? If not, why not? Bigotry? Insecurity? Lack of love towards those whom God made different?

As for the rest of us, be prepared to have even your love for your children or your parents sexualised. Remember Lisa Miller’s piece in Newsweek magazine (commented on in Ref21 here), with its undercurrent of accusations of sexual insecurity and bigotry against those who object to gay marriage and its insinuations about the friendship between David and Jonathan? The article works perfectly well, logically and hermeneutically, if you switch `homosexuality’ for `incest’ and replace the paragraph on David with one about Lot and his daughters. Prepare for a world where the language of love of a father for a daughter or son carries inherently sexual connotations, and where denial of the same is a sign of your insecurity.

Here is the basic problem. Why should we resist the encroachments of Sharia law based on our Western values? What is the opposite of Western values? That would be Eastern values, and can anybody give me a reason why we should prefer one position over another on the basis of geography?

Western values only have value if they are a coded way of referring to something else. And that something else cannot be another horizontal fact, like representative government, or womens’ rights, or anything like that. That just pushes the question back a step. Why should we prefer those? And if we say that Western values simply means “our values,” then why should those outrank “their values”? In the ebb and flow of Darwinian struggle, ours sometimes loses to theirs.

“Western values” as an appeal works only if it is a coded references to Christendom, and that only works if Christ is still there. Anything else is arbitrary, jingoistic, and stupid. Anything else is a couple of dogs fighting over a piece of meat.

The one hundredth time through the Psalms or the Proverbs will yield astonishingly sweet, comforting, and convicting insights, because the more you know the Bible as a whole the more sense its particular parts make. And the more you know your own heart the more you know how to work on it, how to move past your discouragement, your peevishness, and your self-pity. But it takes years of relentless discipline. It is similar to how it takes years of practice to enjoy the power of playing the piano beautifully, but what we are talking about goes beyond even that in complexity and depth. When it comes to the spiritual disciplines, don’t be a sprinter. Be a long-distance runner.

The difference between an unconverted and a converted man is not that one has sins and the other has none; but that the one takes part with his cherished sins against a dreaded God, and the other takes part with a reconciled God against his hated sins.

William Arnot (via) (via christianity)

This is why Christians should always act with humility toward others.

Should.

The church is not to adopt a social reform platform as its message, but the faithful church, wherever it is found, is itself a social reform movement precisely because it is populated by redeemed sinners who are called to faithfulness in following Christ. The Gospel is not a message of social salvation, but it does have social implications.

Faithful Christians can debate the proper and most effective means of organizing the political structure and the economic markets. Bringing all these things into submission to Christ is no easy task, and Gospel must not be tied to any political system, regime, or platform. Justice is our concern because it is God’s concern, but it is no easy task to know how best to seek justice in this fallen world.

A Christian worldview does not consist of having certain thoughts in your head, rattling around. It means living in a certain way—striving for excellence, certainly, but also demonstrating catholicity and generosity of spirit. You appreciate fine dining, but are not above eating a corn dog at the county fair. You know what kind of music glorifies God in worship, and you also love the intricate simplicity of the blues. You love good writing, but you are not critical of the punctuation on the grocery list you are trying to read. Following Christ means striving to grow up into all true excellence—and becoming a snob is not excellent.