Tried With Fire

Without "absolutes" revealed from without by God Himself, we are left rudderless in a sea of conflicting ideas about manners, justice, and right and wrong, issuing from a multitude of self-opinionated thinkers. We could never know who God is, how He is to be worshipped, or wherein true happiness lies. If virtue is sought above harm as a road to temporal happiness, the striving and the progress starts and ends in self - but selfishness is itself a vice! No attitude of mind which does not acknowledge dependence upon Almighty God and seek to glorify Him has any element of good or virtue in it. If the mind of a student is ensnared by these theories and speculations, he will find it a sore task ever to be free of them. Indeed, it is a dolorous task, and something beyond the potential of the slothful or careless, to root out mercilessly ideas and dogmas with which the intellect has long been nurtured. With the world, indwelling sin, and early education all arguing the same way, i...

"Does this sound familiar? (John) Dewey is the source of much of today's moral education, where all values are treated as equally valid and students simply clarify what they personally value most. Teachers are rigorously instructed not to be directive in any way, but only to coach students in a process of weighing alternatives and making up their own minds. Any value that students choose is deemed acceptable, whether or not it comports with accepted moral standards, as long as they have gone through the prescribed series of steps. Why? Because, as one textbook puts it, "None of us can be certain that our values are right for other people." Each individual has to become an autonomous decision maker, determining his values strictly on his own."  Total Truth , Nancy Pearcey, Crossway, 2004, pg. 239. Isn't this the mantra of parents today? "I just want my child to find out for herself what she believes blah, blah, blah."  But how many Christian pa...

I watched Alistair Begg's talk, Is the Exclusivity of Christ Unjust?  from the 2010 Ligonier conference last night.  It's a very timely question because we live in an age of pluralism.  Christianity is considered offensive because we believe it is the only way , not one of many ways to God.  The accusation of being "unloving" is thrown in our faces, because we'd be loving if we accepted every person's right to find their own way to God.  Also in this equally therapeutic age, the cardinal sin is making someone feel bad about themselves.  But how much have we been infected by this mistaken idea of tolerance and feelings trumping truth? Here is a very interesting quote from Pastor Begg's talk: [P]eople are not encouraged to seek out objective truth but to settle for subjective feelings. So to ask what a text means is passe. The real question is “What does it means to me?” Some of you are surprised by this statement because that it is where your home ...

(Sorry for the following rant, but I had first-hand contact with some postmodern pathogens today.) Most people are probably familiar with the Pharisee version 1.0 stereotype. These people examine everyone around them with a microscope to see if others live up to a standard of behavior. The standard can be, "Don't drink, don't smoke, don't chew, and don't go with women who do" and others rules of the same ilk. But it seems Pharisee version 2.0 is available as well. Today, there is overwhelming pressure to not take a stand on anything for fear of offending anyone. The bywords are, "Don't judge me. God accepts me just the way I am and you should, too". Therefore, no one can say anything negative about anything. Even in our language we dance around the word sin by calling things issues . "So-and-so has an issue with authority." Maybe So-and-so really has the sin of rebellion, but God forbid that we would dare say that. I'm not tal...