Things I Think…

Xenia says:

“they just need Jesus’”<<<

Well, this IS the answer, because Jesus is the answer to everything, one way or the other.

Robin says:

It started with smart phones, once we had these gadgets our own thinking went down the drain. I heard someone said that these problems started around 2011, which is the time when smart phones became accessible and affordable.

DavidP says:

#9 seems to be a growing problem — and I’m worried about the backlash. Problematic people are one thing, “Advocates” on Twitter trumpeting their stories and not taking accountability for things when it turns out they were used? That’s another layer of awfulness. With the way Twitter is, I expect people to just move on to the next outrage without cleaning up after themselves.

P&P isn’t a good blueprint for discernment, kids.

DavidP says:

Sorry, Pulpit & Pen aka Protestia.

Dan from Georgia says:

Michael,

My wife’s sister lives about a 30 minute drive from the shooting in the Chicago area on July 4. And yet our “leaders” tweet stupid stuff defending the indefensible.

I guess we want someone who mirrors what we watched on the cable “news” last night, so we get ideologues and idiots.

Officerhoppy says:

I’m with Michael on the “they Just need Jesus” response. It is simplistic and misleading. They need to “start” with Jesus, the the work of transformation doesn’t work without our partnering with the HS. It just takes lots of work. Many come Jesus but not all are disciples. That’s the heavy lifting of being a follower of Christ. And not all stick it out.

Just my thoughts

greg says:

Fair enough Michael, I think you are in the wrong lane on this one. We spend way to much time in this country doing what we think is going to work. It is the sick and sinful heart of man that is the issue. Guns are not the problem the sick, sinful man behind the gun is the issue. We must direct, to the best of our ability, those who have not believed yet to this Jesus we know for two reasons……one we are not able in our own power able to effect change on a long term basis (examine all of history from Eden forward to today….I rest my case) Obviously sharing the Gospel with those who have not yet believed must be done and can only be effectively done by those who have had an encounter with the living God. We have way too many wanna be Christians that have not yet had that encounter. Net result is a lot of unchanged people that end up doing what is right in their own sight instead of living a life with a new heart and a new direction. It is our ONLY hope.

Eric says:

For any problem in society, when different people talk about how it might be solved (or why it can’t), the difference often lies in which party you are hypothetically presuming to direct. “What would you do about this potholed road if you were the local farmer?” is a different question from “What would you do about this potholed road if you were the mayor?”

So when asking the question “What should we do about…”, it matters who the WE is. The answer will be different if it’s me, lots of people like me, the Church, the federal govt, the state govt, (and different entities within the govt systems) the legal system, the UN. Some of those may not be able to do anything.

I think the easiest solution to the Ukraine war is Putin calling it off. But of course most people thinking about the problem are saying “Given that Russia is doing what it’s doing, what should western governments be doing in response”.

It gets more complex when we add God into the mix. God whom we believe can do anything, but seems not to do much out of the ordinary in our times. While many churches struggle because the spiritual water level is low, I spent 5 years in a church where faith was higher, but differences of ideas in how God might work led to differences of ideas about how to proceed in serving him.

Do not criticise another simply for answering a different question from the one you are answering. You may, however, acknowledge their answer to a different question yet criticise them for ignoring the one you are asking.

greg says:

LInn,
Agreed….all I am saying is that one at the exclusion of the other minimizes the power of God to do what He wants to do and is out of balance. That is to work in us and through us in powerful ways to reach the unsaved. Sometimes that may be working on the relationship to get to a point where one might come to trust us and receive the gospel. Other times there is no doubt that God prompts me to speak truth into someone and ALWAYS opens that door at that point and gives me utterance. My wife and I mentor several people frequently and we have both of these scenarios playing out all the time.

Reuben says:

#8

Meh…

You know why numerous people don’t want “word, prayer, fellowship” including me. It is through all three that I became jaded, angry, sad, and eventually running. And you remember the day I ran. In fact, it was you who instructed me to do so. You could say it was situational, but it was the same everywhere else.

Xenia says:

My husband and I are reading the book Father Arseny. It is about a Russian priest who was sent to a work/death camp in Siberia under the reign of Stalin. Fr. Arseny, not a young man, was given the task of keeping his barracks clean and keeping the wood stoves stoked with the wood he had to find and chop.

He was surrounded by vicious criminals and political prisoners, most of whom were haters of Christianity and who did their utmost to make life miserable for Fr. Arseny. It goes w/o saying the prisoners were cold, hungry, overworked and tortured. It is hard to imagine a worse living situation than the one where Fr. A. found himself.

Fr. A. prayed continually as he worked. He did his job diligently, as unto the Lord. He showed the love of Jesus Christ to the other prisoners, who often responded viciously. But by and by, his kindness and self-sacrifice towards even the most brutal criminals began to do its work. Hearts softened, men became Christians, and after a few years the whole atmosphere of that particular barrack was changed. They were still hungry, cold, overworked and beaten, but the prisoners began caring for the sick and sharing their food. And through it all, Fr. A. prayed “Lord JESUS CHRIST, have mercy.”

He could not do anything to thwart international Communism, have any affect on the cold war, feed hungry orphans in India, etc. etc. All he could do was bring Jesus to the people in his barracks.

Xenia says:

Dread, I am always amazed and edified by the things you write here.

Dread says:

I mulled the use of woke and have seen you rail over it before. Nevertheless woke seemed an adequate antonym to born again in context, both entailed a crystallized form of ‘enlightened’ religious fervor that fuel young zealots. Born again has found the dustbin and I hope woke will as well. My use was not lazy but I get the reaction.

Woke is definitely too broad and racial essentialism is too narrow so perhaps identitarianism … but I think my point was clear. The two movements act similarly but I think the secular version will come to a far more vicious end.

Xenia says:

So I am telling people … do not start with the large institutional giants and attempt to halt their crash. No. Start with those with whom you break bread. Slowly, patiently, daily, continuously — offer yourself to them. And of course the table is the place for stranger, alien, and the ‘other,’ whom we don’t understand but receive.<<<

This is it, folks!

(This is not to say some people may be especially called by God to engage the culture in a larger way, such as the Supreme Court Justices recently, God bless them.)

Xenia says:

If I can’t say “woke” I will just say sodomite or pervert….

Bestiality is next on the agenda, folks.

Steve says:

There are churches on every corner, the airwaves are saturated with Christian media …the Gospel is everywhere.

It’s not working to solve any of our issues.

___________________________________

Christendom is everywhere but I’m not convinced the gospel is. Forget who said this, but said something like the biggest threat to the gospel is the church itself. Think about it, if we could even agree on exactly what the problems are, let alone the complex solutions to these complex problems and somehow act on it to make it a reality what exactly would that accomplish for the kingdom? If we make society better, could we get to a point where see no need for a personal gospel.? For instance let’s say hard core drugs is the main issue and we fix it for good. No more drugs to be found anywhere. Sounds great, but would this make anyone fall on their knees and cry out to God for mercy? Of course not. Every societal problem is this way. There is a tension, the more all the evils of society are dealt with, the less and less anyone would see their own need for mercy and cry out to God. This is the tension I see with the social gospel and the personal gospel and I tend to view the social gospel more as social justice which although biblical to an extent is not the gospel.

Steve says:

Michael, I was careful with my words. Social justice is no way equivalent to biblical justice but overlaps at times. However, social justice is often wordly and antithetical to the gospel.

pstrmike says:

I think there is this latent expectation that if people become Christian, that they will settle down and shed their activism. That was a colonial model that was used by the Spanish in the New World and has been copied ever since. It doesn’t appear to be very successful. I do like Xenia’s story of a man who endured much hardship and remained faithful. Too often we hope to see conversion as a painless, quick and easy process.

As to the importance of the church in the lives of individuals and communities, I’ve had this discussion several times with different people. I don’t have any church here locally that stands out as one that I would want to be a part of when I finish my current work here. I’m interested in a more sacramental expression, but I can’t stomach the out of balance liberalism of some of them. Have spent enough time in some “liberal” circles, I’ve found that they are no better in engaging with a variant to their own personal views than most conservatives. Perhaps the answer might be to meet with a group of people on line and have the assembly be similar to an AA meeting in format and structure. Of course, that can be easily disrupted my some narcissistic fool who cannot exercise any self-control. Still thinking this one through.

Dread says:

Pstr Mike

Activism is something of an equivalent to evangelism/missions — it is the “what am I here for?” Activism is reason for being… this is also why missions became “missional” a wedding of the two I think.

Linn says:

9:04 am
Summer school all day…so a little late to the party.

Maybe when we hear “they need the gospel”, our response should be “how do you propose to apply the gospel to this situation?” So, if someone were hungry, you would share the gospel and feed them. If someone were caught in adultery, you would share the gospel and explain God’s plan for sexuality in marriage…and so on and so forth.

Dread says:

Steve

The Marxist roots of of all kinds of “critical theory” intrusion into the education system is abundantly evidenced. Check out James Lindsay’s work at New Discourses podcast.

We are experiencing the outcome of over 60 years of institutional capture as a culture. It has brought us to the presence of the sexual grooming of prepubescent kids in public education. All that in the name of social justice.

Biblical justice would not land us there but it would have us more active.

One of the difficulties we face is the resistance on the part of public and private systems to distinctly Christian initiatives. But I maintain that Christians are engaged at every level of public and private life without open Christian identification. We serve in Caesar’s house even now

Dread says:

Steve

He was part of the New Atheist movement but has a podcast the Theology of Marxism and another on the Meaning and Necessity of Theology and he’s appealed to the SBC strongly on the matter of CRT and resolution 9 from 2019 I think.

He’s not hostile to Christianity at this point and I think is not avowed in his atheism.