Video: Why the Church Abandoned the Culture with Michael Craven

Live Webinar and Q&A with Michael Craven 3/4/2024

The Christian faith has gone from being a public truth to a private experience. The role of the Church in the broader culture has waned over the past 100 years. As faith has receded from society, dark ideologies have set up residence in the cultural domains vacated by Christians. Little wonder our families, communities, institutions, and even churches are in decay. What would our churches, families, communities, and nation look like when Christians invade all of culture with the truth and light of Jesus Christ? Lance Cashion is joined by special guest, Michael Craven, Vice President of Equipping & Mobilization at the Colson Center for Christian Worldview.

Did Christians lose a ‘culture war’? Or did we abandon the cultural domains God commanded us to steward?
Where do we go from here?

You will have a better understanding of why the church is in its current state in America. You’ll also be equipped to help your local church recover its rightful role in society. You will be encouraged and hopeful for the future as you live boldly for Christ in this generation.

Please share your insights by commenting below this post.

Now more than ever, worldview training is essential. It is not a Christian elective. I launched the Forge Room Foundation in order to equip Christians to understand our cultural moment and respond with a biblical worldview perspective.

Learn more and give here…

He Gets Us? Don’t Take the Bait!

HE GETS US? DON'T TAKE THE BAIT!

Think biblically and employ the theological resources provided in scripture. Use discernment and logic when viewing all media, including emotionally manipulative Super Bowl commercials that claim to convey a biblical message.
ALL Christians must develop theological precision and clarity.
It’s time for Christians to think critically from a biblical worldview perspective.

Please share your insights by commenting below this post.

Thesis: The entire He Gets Us enterprise is nothing more than repackaged liberal theology wrapped in identity politics.

I believe the message conveyed by the He Gets Us Super Bowl commercial must be analyzed. It was viewed by millions of people. (You can view it here). It is a composition of images of people washing the feet of other people to a rendition of a song by INXS entitled, “Never Tear Us Apart.” The video ends with the message, “Jesus didn’t teach hate. He washed feet.

I’m going to analyze and critique the He Gets Us commercial as well as their overall messaging from a biblical worldview perspective, identify a few significant theological problems, and suggest biblical solutions.

At the conclusion of this article, you can watch an alternative to the He Gets Us commercial called, “He Saves Us” by Jamie Bambrick. Compare them for yourself, use what you have learned, and decide which one is closer to biblical Christianity.

While I think there are significant problems with the commercial, I believe the conversations and even controversy surrounding it are a good thing. This is a teachable moment for Christians and should be seen as an opportunity to wrestle with ideas and exercise discernment and wisdom. Someone might say, “How can public debate among Christians over a sixty second commercial be a good thing for the church? This is a huge waste of time and damages the witness of the church to a lost world.”

Dealing with issues in the public sphere is rooted in scripture and Christian tradition. Jesus confronted the hypocrisy and sin of the Pharisees on numerous occasions. Paul confronted the error of religious and political leaders as well. The creeds and confessions throughout church history were responses to heretical ideas, controversies, and false teaching. Keep in mind, that heresy and false teaching are not always blatantly obvious. One must use wisdom, discernment, and good theology to reveal them. Many Christian sounding sentiments and slogans, are in fact not biblical at all.

“He (the serpent) said to the woman, “Did God actually say…?”” (Genesis 3:1b)

Falsehood and heresy are far more damaging to the Christian witness than open debate and confrontation of bad theology and bad ideas.

If dealing with bad ideas publicly wasn’t a waste of time for Jesus, Paul, the church fathers, and reformers then it is not a waste of time for Christians of any era, including our own. This conversation and debate is good for the church.

The people who created the He Gets Us commercial are using bad hermeneutics that distort Jesus Christ and biblical faith.

Biblical hermeneutics is the study of the principles and methods of interpreting the text of the Bible. 2 Timothy 2:15 commands believers to be involved in hermeneutics: “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who . . . correctly handles the word of truth.” The purpose of biblical hermeneutics is to help us to know how to properly interpret, understand, and apply the Bible.”(1)  Poor interpretation of scripture will result in a distorted understanding and faulty application.

Someone may be thinking that I’m being too technical and all this theological jargon is confusing and creates division.

For a Christian, theology is more than just the study of God or knowing things about God. At the core of Christian theology is knowing God Himself.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” (Mark 12:30)

The question is, “How can we know God?” We personally know God primarily through Scripture (His special revelation to man about Himself and the world we inhabit).

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

We can know a few things about God through His general revelation via the created order as well.

“The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.”
(Psalm 19:1-2)

The poor hermeneutics and bad theology employed by He Gets Us leads people away from orthodoxy (right belief) into heterodoxy (heresy). Misinterpretation will lead to misunderstanding and misapplication of scripture. This needs to be confronted, stopped, and corrected.

Missing from the He Gets Us campaign is a biblical hermeneutic and understanding of the difference between exegesis and eisegesis.

The lens we use when approaching scripture and culture will have massive ramifications on our theology and how we live.

First, Christians must understand the hermeneutic used by He Gets Us. This can be found on their website:

“We look at the biography of Jesus through a modern lens to find new relevance in often overlooked moments and themes from his life.”(2)

That statement is problematic and tells us everything we need to know. He Gets Us chose to interpret scripture using a non-biblical framework. This means that everything, including their conclusions, will shift away from the Bible. 

Second, Christians must adhere to a biblical interpretation found in the Bible itself. The Bible is the lens through which we understand Christ and culture. Interpreting scripture and the life and ministry of Jesus Christ through a ‘modern lens’ is not biblical. In fact it’s a poor hermeneutical approach. It will eventually lead one away from biblical truth into falsehood and destruction.

“For the Christian, the Bible is not merely a book to be looked at, it is also a lens to be looked through.”(3)

Third, Christians must understand the difference between exegesis and eisegesis. Can we make the Bible say whatever we want it to say? Am I at liberty to infuse my own meaning and experience into the biblical text? What is the standard? Is man the standard? Or is God’s word the standard?

Exegesis is the exposition or explanation of a text based on a careful, objective analysis. The word exegesis literally means “to lead out of.” That means that the interpreter is led to his conclusions by following the text. The opposite approach to Scripture is eisegesis, which is the interpretation of a passage based on a subjective, non-analytical reading. The word eisegesis literally means “to lead into,” which means the interpreter injects his own ideas into the text, making it mean whatever he wants.”(4)

Someone will say that getting into the weeds of theological interpretation methods gets in the way of winning people to Christ with a winsome message.

However, truth contained in the message is vastly more important than winsomeness of the message.

The He Gets Us marketers and consultants miss the point and miss the mark. In doing so, they confuse Christians and non-Christians alike. When a so-called “Christian” commercial confuses Christians, you know there is a problem.

If so-called “Christians” resort to misrepresenting scripture and manipulating emotions as a means of making Jesus more appealing, they are employing falsehood to bring about righteousness. That is at best unbiblical and at worst, evil.

“How can God condemn me as a sinner if my dishonesty highlights his truthfulness and brings him more glory?” And some people even slander us by claiming that we say, “The more we sin, the better it is!” Those who say such things deserve to be condemned.” (Romans 3:7-8 NLT)

Christians should use the Bible as the lens through which to see and understand culture, not the other way around.

The He Gets Us commercial attempts to answer the worldview question: “What is wrong with the world and how do we fix it?”

Watch the commercial carefully and investigate their website. You’ll discover they locate the problem with the world outside the individual human heart and reframe it as ‘ideological differences’ that lead to disunity. The He Gets Us solution to the problem is for people to perform humble “acts of kindness.” In other words, be nice and accommodating.

The He Gets Us website states: “We began to imagine a world where ideological others were willing to set their differences aside and wash one another’s feet. How would that look? How would our contentious world change if we washed one another’s feet, not literally, but figuratively? Figurative foot washing can be as simple as giving a compliment to a co-worker or paying for a stranger’s lunch. It can also be as difficult as not responding to someone who’s criticizing you or reaching out to an estranged family member. Acts of kindness done out of humility and respect for another person could be considered the equivalent of foot washing.”(5)

Remember, the video ends with the words, “Jesus didn’t teach hate. He washed feet.” Yes, Jesus did wash the feet of the disciples. That is true! But, that’s not the point. He Gets Us admit that washing feet isn’t the point on their multi-million dollar website. What is the point? (I’ll get this later). This lack of clarity and lack of theological precision begs the question…

What do you mean by that?

What do they mean when they say, “Jesus didn’t teach hate?” What did Jesus teach? What do the He Gets Us folks mean by ‘hate’? They don’t provide clear biblical definitions for anything. Again, they are making the text mean whatever they want and asking you to believe them!

The word of God does tell us what the Lord hates:

“There are six things that the Lord hates,
seven that are an abomination to him:
haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
and hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked plans,
feet that make haste to run to evil,
a false witness who breathes out lies,
and one who sows discord among brothers.”
(Proverbs 6:16-19)

“Yet this you do have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.” (Revelation 2:6)

“You shall not set up for yourself a sacred pillar which the Lord your God hates.” (Deuteronomy 16:22)

“You shall not behave thus toward the Lord your God, for every abominable act which the Lord hates they have done for their gods; for they even burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods.” (Deuteronomy 12:31)

“For I hate divorce,” says the Lord, the God of Israel, “and him who covers his garment with wrong,” says the Lord of hosts. “So take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously.” (Malachi 2:16)

“Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.” (Romans 12:9)

Biblically, the problem with the world is sin. The solution is salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone.

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…” (Romans 3:23)

The source of sin is located in the individual human heart. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn says it best, “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either – but right through every human heart – and through all human hearts.”

Acts of kindness are not salvific nor transformative. Only God’s grace through Christ’s death and resurrection save sinners.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Transformed redeemed people transform their cultural environments because they live in obedience to all that Christ commands. Furthermore, “washing feet” is a demonstration of the humility and obedience of Christ (even unto death on a Roman cross), modeled for His disciples who would be transformed through faith upon His resurrection. Christians serve others by serving Christ because we’re saved by Him.

“… But emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:7-8)

Again, the entire He Gets Us enterprise is nothing more than repackaged liberal theology wrapped in identity politics. It’s not really designed to share the Gospel of the Kingdom, the forgiveness of sin, and salvation in Christ alone.

It is designed to divide the church along political lines by taking a swipe at biblical Christianity. He Gets Us is identity politics dressed up in Christian drag. They are not really interested in loving God and leading people to Christ, they have a set of political priorities.

Both the commercial and website convey messages rooted in identity politics.

“Identity politics is politics based on a particular identity, such as race, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, social background, caste, and social class…
Identity politics is further described as:
(a) ethnicity as a contemporary form of politics;
(b) a form of critical pedagogy that links social structure with the insights of poststructuralism regarding the nature of subjectivity, while incorporating a Marxist commitment to politics ; and
(c) general efforts by status based movements to foster and explore the cultural identity of members. By the mid-1990s, references to identity politics as violent ethnic conflict, and nationalism more generally…”(6)

According to their website, the He Gets Us folks were attempting to convey the following message, with an upcoming election year that will be filled with division and derision, we decided to focus on one of the most important directives given by Jesus – “Love Your Neighbor.”

On the surface, this all might sound ‘good’ and Christ-like. However, liberal theology always sacrifices the greatest commandment on the alter of the second. In other words, loving the God of the universe is sacrificed on the alter of loving your neighbor. Man becomes the center, not God.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important commandment. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37–40)

Biblically, it is impossible to truly love your neighbor without loving God first (agape love). Love of God is the post on which love of others hangs.

When viewing the He Gets Us commercials, website, and interviews with creators in their totality, identity politics is exposed as the primary driver of their program. As such, one must recognize that Marxian political theory in the form of Critical Social Theory is the shaping force behind identity politics. Whether the He Gets Us people realize it or not, they are promoting a non-biblical worldview.

One of the easiest ways to recognize liberal theology is by identifying what is ignored, rejected, and emphasized.

God and His commands are ignored or de-emphasized. Christ as Savior and Lord is rejected. And man’s experience is emphasized.

David Wells said, “The liberal approach sees experience – whether of ourselves, of the natural world, of political reality, or of society or within the church – as providing the stuff out of which theology is made. It therefore always incorporates modernity into its (liberal) theology, not simply as an external pole of reference for that theology, but as its internal substance.” In other words, liberal theology is man-centered built around man’s experience. As such, man is the standard and measure of all things.

Truth, is then relocated from God’s revealed word, to man’s relativistic experiential whims.

Reductionism

The mission and message of Jesus Christ is reduced to moralism and a therapeutic social program with a political agenda. This reductionism is antithetical to biblical faith and sound theology. Furthermore, it can’t be recognized as biblical Christianity. It is something else.

He Gets Us is heretical propaganda that punches right. It is a poorly constructed ‘artful’ meme shaped more by Herbert Marcuse’s “Repressive Tolerance”(7) than by the Bible. It is the power dynamic applied within Christian theology. In other words, it’s just repackaged liberal theology. There is nothing new under the sun. Heresy is still heresy regardless of its therapeutic individualistic self-expressive wrapper.

Someone will say, “Heretical? Isn’t that a little harsh?” Perhaps it grates against the modern therapeutic sensibilities of liberal ‘Christians’, but my tone isn’t important. The content and truth of what I’m saying is. Because the truth of the Gospel and God’s word are what are being challenged by the He Gets Us folks.

He Gets Us is distorting the biblical historical Lord Jesus Christ and promoting a liberal political ideology with a touch of good old fashion gnosticism. The the “oppressor versus oppressed” power dynamic is portrayed visually in the commercial. When you see the power dynamic within theology, you are seeing Cultural Marxism being applied, albeit in an artful way meant to elicit an emotional response.

They’re basically saying:
“We just want people to see Jesus in a new way.”
“We want people who’ve been oppressed by the church to learn about the real Jesus that most Christians don’t know.”

My response is as follows:

As thinking and discerning Christians, we must keep in mind that something new about Jesus is most likely not true. The Bible says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings…” (Hebrews 13:8-9a)

In addition, when someone attempts to convince you that they possess hidden knowledge about the Bible or truth in general, they are committing a gnostic heresy. Well-meaning Christians fall for this all the time, just like first century Christians fell for gnosticism.

R.V. Young said, “The Gnostics’ teaching places the origin of evil, of pain and suffering, in the conditions of the material creation; salvation involves overcoming ignorance and escaping these external conditions by finding divinity within. . . . The Gnostic finds the beginning of the path to salvation in the realization that the world is a great imposture, a prison of pain and frustration. His escape lies in recovering the intrinsic good within himself…”

“Gnostics claim to possess an elevated knowledge, a “higher truth” known only to a certain few. Gnosticism comes from the Greek word gnosis which means “to know.” Gnostics claim to possess a higher knowledge, not from the Bible, but acquired on some mystical higher plane of existence. Gnostics see themselves as a privileged class elevated above everybody else by their higher, deeper knowledge of God.”(8)

“O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called “knowledge,” for by professing it some have swerved from the faith. Grace be with you.” (1 Timothy 6:20-21)

Finally, don’t fall victim to He Gets Usappeal to emotion” logical fallacy. “Appeal to emotion fallacy occurs when someone tries to convince another person by evoking their feelings rather than providing evidence. With the appeal to emotion fallacy, people accept a claim as true because they react emotionally to it. As a result, they focus on factors irrelevant to the question at hand, ignoring facts and logical reasoning.”(9) To put it another way, objective truth is jettisoned by allowing subjective emotions to determine truth.

Again, don’t take the bait.

Gresham Machen was correct when he said that liberal Christianity isn’t a variation of Christianity, but an entirely different religion.

The solution is simple. Think biblically and employ the theological resources provided in scripture.

Use discernment and logic when viewing all media, including emotionally manipulative Super Bowl commercials that claim to convey a biblical message.

ALL Christians must develop theological precision and clarity. It’s time for Christians to think critically.

At the end of the day, the He Gets Us message trades a clear call for repentance from sin and faith in Christ for a feel-good social gospel with a political agenda. Nowhere in their content will you find a crying out to God for mercy and forgiveness – only an emotional appeal to people to conform to a moralistic form of identity politics.

Ask yourself these questions:
Who is the biblical historical Jesus Christ?
What did He come to accomplish?
What did He commission His ekklesia (church) to do?
What does He expect from us individually and as a church?

Here’s the message to the He Gets Us folks and all Christians.

“O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:1-3)

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:2)

Don’t take the He Gets Us bait… The truth is, Jesus Christ saves us! Jesus Christ is Lord of All.

Below: The Christian Super Bowl Ad They SHOULD Have Made | He Saves Us by Jamie Bambrick

Please share your insights by commenting below this post.

Now more than ever, worldview training is essential. It is not a Christian elective. I launched the Forge Room Foundation in order to equip Christians to understand our cultural moment and respond with a biblical worldview perspective.

Learn more and give here…

The Imagination Explained

IMAGINATION EXPLAINED

3 ways imagination is corrupted and what to do about it.

A synthesis and summary of article by Vigen Guroian in Touchstone Magazine.

Most people don’t think very deeply about the most powerful endowment God has given to his image-bearers, the Imagination!

Our imaginations can take us to some very good and joyful places, they can take us into very dark places as well. Our imaginations are more culturally relevant that we realize.

Below is a synthesis of a portion of an article by Vigen Guroian in Touchstone Magazine entitled, “Of Weed & Fairy Tales – The Idylls, Idols & Devils That Corrupt the Moral Imagination” (2020). I quote the article at length.

I hope it helps you understand the gift of the imagination, how to guard it from corruption, and how to cultivate it as God intends. I highly recommend reading Guroian’s article in its entirety.

The Purpose of Imagination

“The human imagination “reaches out and seizes likenesses and analogies” that establish relation and unity in a world of meaning. In other words, imagination is the self’s process of finding direction and purpose in life by making metaphors from remembered experiences to understand present experience. It is not an instinct but an attribute and an expression of our freedom, passion, and reason…

Wherever there are human beings, imagination exists and is exercised, much as wherever there are spiders, webs are spun. The important question is what kinds of imagination our contemporary culture encourages.” (Guroian)

Moral Imagination

The Human Power to “conceive of men and women as moral beings, i.e., as persons, not things or animals whose value is their utility. It is the process by which the self makes metaphors out of images stored in memory, which then are employed to find and suppose moral correspondences in experience.” (Guroian)

Left unprotected or uncultivated, the moral imagination decays into corruption and perversity.

Idyllic Imagination

It is escapist and utopian. “The self gripped by the idyllic imagination is escapist, not in the sense that it flees its physical surroundings so much as it shirks its civic, social, and moral responsibilities…

This is accompanied and reinforced by rejection and rebellion against old dogmas, manners, and mores. The idyllic imagination is in search of emancipation from conventional constraints. In our democratic and individualistic environment, persons justify this “liberation” in the name of self-fulfillment and self-realization, which they believe existing norms and structures inhibit or obstruct…

Quite often there is a turning to hedonistic imaginings, flagrant sensuality, and explorations of the “flesh.” These are paths that promise happiness but more often than not lead instead to boredom and ennui or, worse, physical and spiritual dissipation.” (Guroian)

The Idyllic Imagination rejects morality in pursuit of self-fulfillment. It is marked by hedonism, preoccupation with self, and sensuality. It seeks liberation from morals and results in boredom, dissatisfaction, or worse, physical and spiritual corruption and a wasted life.

Idolatrous Imagination

The Idolatrous Imagination cultivates the “absolutization of the relative” (Will Herberg)…
“Idolatry, in biblical terms, is the giving of one’s highest loyalties and devotions to objects and things other than God… What idolatry does is to convert its object into an absolute, thereby destroying the partial good within it and transforming it into a total evil…

Corrupted imaginations may be tracked everywhere in our culture. The media fixes on false gods whose stories replace the lives of saints and real heroes. One need only look at the popular magazines, MTV, television talk shows, and celebrity channels, to understand how pervasive is the idolatrous imagination… Even our schools and public libraries are heavily under its influence…

“What is more, the people, when they grow dissatisfied with their idols, often mercilessly turn on them and consume them with an ungodly wrath.” (Guroian)

The Idolatrous Imagination absolutizes the relative, lacking consciousness of sin, good things are given priority and devotion over God (Idolatry). A good object is converted into an absolute, making it totally evil. When the absolutized idol fails to satisfy its worshipers, they turn on it and destroy it.

Diabolical Imagination

“The coordinates that track the fall of the Western self into the diabolic imagination are the loss of the concept of sin and the rise of popular therapeutic justifications and excuses for things that were once thought perverse. Moral norms are redescribed as values relative to self or culture. Human nature is viewed as infinitely malleable and changing. Some go so far as to say it is merely a social construct or fiction. Good and evil are considered matters of perspective (opinion / sentiments)…

The Diabolic Imagination is latent within each of us, the image of the demonic imprinted by Original Sin on the human soul.” (Guroian)

The Diabolical Imagination transforms morals into relative values geared toward self. Objective good and evil do not exist outside one’s personal perspective or orientation. Sex and Violence are central. Greed and selfishness rule – revealing the sin nature within every human heart.

The Enriched Imagination

“After a child has read Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen or Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, her moral imagination is sure to have been stimulated and sharpened. The powerful images of good and evil in these stories show a child how to love through the examples of the characters she herself has come to love and admire. Such memories become the analogues that the moral imagination uses to make real-life decisions, and these memories become constitutive elements of her self-identity and character…

A well-fortified and story-enriched moral imagination helps children and adults move about in the world with moral intent and ultimately with faith, hope, and charity. As Flannery O’Connor once said, “Our response to life is different if we have been taught only a definition of faith than if we have trembled with Abraham as he held a knife over Isaac.” (Guroian)

Like a neglected vegetable garden is susceptible to weeds and pests, the human imagination left unattended, unguarded, and uncultivated will incrementally decay and succumb to evil. Therefore, we must steward and shape our imaginations well.

Recovering the Enriched Imagination

There is a reason C.S. Lewis stories of Narnia and Tolkien’s tales of hobbits and rings have captured and shaped the imaginations and lives of generations. They are not simply far-fetched fantasies. Those tales are in fact, true. Not that the characters or worlds existed in human history but their underlying frameworks are constructed on objective moral truths. These beautiful and good true stories point beyond themselves to the ultimate source of goodness, truth, and beauty – God.

“Stories not only reflect life, they shape it. It is of no small account what stories we tell and what stories we live by…”(Guroian)

Keep in mind biblical Christianity has the ultimate story on which all other stories rest – creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. It is The Story that we should tell and allow to shape our lives.

I leave you with one of my favorite G.K. Chesterton Quotes:

“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.”

Source of quotes above: “Of Weed & Fairy Tales – The Idylls, Idols & Devils That Corrupt the Moral Imagination” by Vigen Guroian (2020) www.touchstonemag.com

Please share your insights by commenting below this post.

I launched the Forge Room Foundation in order to equip Christians to understand our cultural moment and respond with a biblical worldview perspective. We have a end-of-year fundraising goal of $50,000. There is a $7,500 matching challenge in play! This will allow us to quip and mobilize people for Kingdom action. Please consider us in your year end generosity plans. Learn more and give here…

LEARN ABOUT THE FORGE ROOM FOUNDATION.
TRAINING EVERYDAY CHRISTIANS TO FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT OF FAITH.

Taming Politics

Politics should not be an idol nor something to be ignored.

Politics should be stewarded with thankfulness.

Please share your insights by commenting below this post.

Political thinking does not arise in a vacuum, nor do our politics stay neatly within the walls we erect around them…

On the contrary, political convictions emerge from our deep underlying assumptions about reality, life, and what we believe about the world we inhabit. While political possibilities shift, biblical truth does not – neither should our convictions.

 

Some treat politics as a worldview – this is wrong. Politics is incapable of answering the bigger questions of life and existence (origin, meaning, identity, morality, destiny). In other words, politics is too small to function as a comprehensive worldview.

On the other hand, some believe politics has no place within a Christian worldview or mitigate its importance – this is also wrong. If a worldview is incapable of containing politics, that worldview is too small.

Only a full-orbed Kingdom vision is capable of not only containing but taming and shaping our politics. For the Christian, our politics should flow from deeply held truths about God, His reality, His creation, His commands, and our responsibility. We must ground our politics in the Word of God, obey His commands, and reflect on the implications of scripture upon our cultural moment.

Politics properly understood impacts individuals made in the image of God with intrinsic value and worth. Because politics involves people we are commanded to love regardless of their political positions – we have a responsibility to properly steward politics. A good gardener would no more allow weeds and pests to infest his gardens than Christians ought to allow harmful ideas and bad policies to infest the way we govern a society comprised of image-bearers – our neighbors.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind… And “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-39 ESV)

Can we truly claim to love God and love our neighbors while allowing evil and destructive policies to harm our neighbors who are created in God’s image?

Someone said that “politics has sucked the air out of the room” in our social discourse. I agree!  However, I will take it a bit further…  Politics IS the room and the door is locked.

I believe the Church is the only institution on the planet that possesses the only key to unlock the door. But it will require the recovery of an integrated Kingdom vision where we live under the rule and reign of Jesus Christ – declaring the Lordship of Christ over all things… even political things.

Politics should not be an idol nor something to be ignored. Politics should be stewarded with thankfulness.

 

Please share your insights by commenting below this post.

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Sacred Cows, Ideas and Innovation

Innovative ideas begin to shape future reality before the innovation is even fully developed. The Thinking Christian must possess a biblical foundation and the cultural intelligence to understand that ideas capture the imagination prior to being fully adopted and acted upon.

Who invented the smartphone? Well, certainly Alexander Graham Bell and Antonio Meucci and Edison and Tesla had something to do with it. And the folks at Fairchild. And Palm and Cisco and General Magic and countless others.
When we insist on waiting until it’s done before we share it, we walk away from the most important component of innovation.

Seth Godin

Innovative ideas begin to shape future reality before the innovation is even fully developed.

Innovation is not limited to smartphones, the internet, or technology. Ideas like hospitals, orphanages, and liberty were innovations. Just as ideas like Critical Race Theory, postmodernism, queer theory, and trans-humanism were innovations. Ideas beget ideas and those ideas shape reality for good or ill.

Ideas are never stagnant. Once shared, they circulate and diffuse through groups of people. Before those ideas are even fully developed, they begin to mold the social imagination and sentiments. We live in a world structured around ideas. We often refer to it as ‘culture.’

Our cultural moment is shaped by innovative ideas and forces that began decades ago. Contrary to popular belief, not all innovations are good or beneficial. Innovative ideas emerge from the worldview of the person who conceived them. As an idea flows from the academy down through music, arts, media, elite circles, and politics, that idea carries with it a worldview (a belief about reality and how we behave based on that belief). The question is whether or not the worldview embedded in an idea is good or not – true or not.

We must ask questions:

“If I believe this idea, what is the result?”
“Where does this idea lead if taken to its logical conclusion?”
“Does this idea lead to human flourishing for everyone or just some?”
“Does this idea potentially harm people?”

For instance, women living in most Islamic cultures do not have the same rights as men. At some point, when faced with the innovation of the car, some Islamic clerics responded by putting forth the idea that women should not be allowed to drive. The result is that in a few (not all) Muslim majority societies, women are forbidden from driving or heavily restricted. This creates the conditions where females are dependent on males for transportation. Thus, limiting mobility and ultimately, freedom (of women).

Another example can be observed in predominantly Hindu cultures like India. The cow is sacred to most practicing Hindus in India. Cows cannot be killed or harmed in Hindu cultures. Due to the caste system, the population is segregated. The upper castes are forbidden from associating with the lowest caste (referred to as the ‘untouchables’). This creates the conditions of zero socioeconomic upward mobility for lower classes. They are stuck. When people are stuck, they are trapped in perpetual poverty – many are starving.

What does this have to do with sacred cows?

Since cattle cannot be killed or harmed in Hindu cultures, it means they cannot be used for food. India could feed its starving people beef but the idea that cattle cannot be killed prevents that from occurring. The result is malnutrition and mass starvation that could be prevented. Imagine 1200 lbs. of beef walking down the middle of the street crowded with starving people.

Ideas have consequences and bad ideas have victims. The idea of forbidding people to consume what God created for food is a bad idea. People die. Sacred Cows make good hamburger meat and maybe its time to innovate with the idea to feed the starving people of India beef.

The Thinking Christian must possess a biblical foundation and the cultural intelligence to understand that ideas capture the imagination prior to being fully adopted and acted upon. We need to understand that innovation is not limited to technologies. Ideas are innovations as well. I’d argue that ideas are far more powerful than technological innovations.

The solution?

We must recover a biblical vision of total reality, objective truth, and innovate against the bad ideas that harm people and God’s world. By simply sharing innovative ideas about that which is good, true and beautiful, we are actually shaping the future for God’s glory.

We would do well to develop a theology of innovation – beginning with “In the beginning God created…”

The Gospel of the Kingdom proclamation that Christ is risen and is currently ruling and reigning over ALL things, and that He will restore ALL things is the most powerful innovation ever. Let’s begin innovating with the truth – there’s an idea worth sharing.

Word Wars – How Academic Activists Manipulate Language to Win Political Battles

Who wields cultural power? Whoever tells the stories that shape the cultural imagination. Whoever creates ideas and concepts that diffuse throughout a population over a period of time. This is accomplished through language.

Language and more precisely, words are extremely powerful. Words have the ability to shape identity, reality, and the future.

Why do academic activists manipulate and distort language?

Here’s the short answer. When attaining cultural (hegemonic) and political power are the goals, distorting and weaponizing language is in the realm of options. Progressive academics who have colonized our universities and schools know that words can confuse, silence and break the will of their political enemies. But the question is, ‘How did we get here?’

All social engineering is preceded by verbal engineering.

William Smith

We know words are powerful

Let’s consider something familiar. The old saying, “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me” seems like a good sentiment when dealing with toddlers and school bullies. However, is it a wise sentiment?

Having ministered to several people who’ve experienced childhood abuse, I have learned that while the physical injuries eventually heal, the damage inflicted by words leave deeper wounds than most of us realize.

My intention is not to diminish the horrible pain and lasting trauma caused by physical abuse. On the same token, I’m not attempting to claim that every single offensive word, disagreement or challenge to one’s political identity should carry a trigger warning. Furthermore, I’m not advocating for any censoring or silencing of free speech. I’m attempting to demonstrate that words carry more force than we recognize. Force for good or for ill.

I have met adults who, as children experienced terrible physical abuse from a parent. At the same time, the abusive parent was calling them, “worthless” and “stupid”. Uttering vitriolic statements to their child like, “I wished you were never born!” or “I wish you were dead!” Let’s STOP right here and read that again. Imagine your father, mother, or the person you trusted most saying those words to you.

Statistically, based on the numbers of readers and subscribers to this blog, some of you have experienced abuse. My intent is not to bring up past trauma but to bring insight to my readers on the power of language.

The physical wounds leave lasting scars on the body and emotions. However, the verbal wounds cut deep into a child’s mind and heart. Those harmful words from an abuser potentially shape the psyche, thought-life and eventually the identity of the victim. That will extend into one’s relationships with others. If left unaddressed, the dysfunction begets dysfunction. 

While words can inflict great, sometimes irreparable harm, words can also build-up, encourage, bring order and restore.

I share this in order to demonstrate the power of words and language before addressing how language shapes the social imagination and culture.

Theologians, philosophers, poets, and academics have understood the power of language for thousands of years. Language forms the fabric of human history, relationships and cultures. Language shapes the contours of our thoughts and comprehension of reality. It’s also internal dialog and external expression of what we believe and thus, our behaviors.

As a part of my studies in anthropology, courses in linguistics were required. Through the study of linguistics, I discovered the profundity of human language. I admit, I did not fully appreciate what I was learning at the time. I do now.

Leading up to now

What I’ve discovered in the last several years is the extent to which words and language have been warped, distorted, disjointed or re-defined. We are creating new words, like “Google”, which can be a noun or verb (I “Googled” my name yesterday). 30 years ago, no one would understand what you meant if you said, “I Googled my name to see what came up.”

In 1950, the majority of people would have understood truth as being objective. What’s true about reality for me is also true for you. Truth doesn’t change, truth just is. Back then, the social order and society ordered itself around objective truth. However, with the rise of post-modernism, standpoint epistemology and obsession with individual self-expression, “truth” has been re-defined to mean what an individual wants it to mean. Truth is based on their subjective experience and how they view reality. Some academics go as far to argue that “truth” is a social construct. Today, it’s progressed to point of absurdity.

How did we get to a place as a culture where words don’t mean what they use to?

Why are we seeing a growing trend of weaponized language?

This is where we must pause and exercise discernment. I think Carl Trueman said it best, “Understanding the times in which we live is a precondition to responding appropriately to the times.” It’s vital that we have a basic understanding that there are cultural pathologies and undercurrents that led to this moment.

“Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time.”

– Voltaire

For the sake of clarity and time, I will not go into great depth here. Suffice to say, philosophers and academics realized obscuring language and distorting meaning was a powerful tool to change society. We can trace this back to influential people like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Karl Marx and so on.

The Rise of Progressivism

At the turn of the 20th century, we begin to see the ideas of Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and Antonio Gramsci worm their way out of the academy into cultural institutions like the arts, elite circles, and eventually diffuse through politics in America. By the late 1950s and early 1960s, Marxian academics came to the full realization that language is a tool to attain political and cultural power and dominance. We saw the emergence of the “New Left” that would evolve into what we now call “Progressivism.”

Progressivism is one of those words that is new to the modern lexicon. It represents a philosophy and totalizing vision of life, history, and reality. In the 1940s and 1950s, most Americans repudiated Marxist ideas like socialism and Communism. So, Marxist academics in places like the Frankfurt School, began to create linguistic cloaks to conceal and camouflage their ideology in oder to make them more palatable and acceptable to the masses. Terms and concepts like “Critical Theory”, and “Social Theory”. Progressivism eventually emerged. Given, I know I am over-simplifying. But, the point is, redefined language could be used as a cloak for ideas. In the mind of the progressive academic activist, words should be both emotionally and politically charged in order to be used as weapons of revolution.

Recently, new phrases and categories employ familiar words but their meaning is obscure or totally new. You’ve probably heard words and combinations like, “white fragility“, “white privilege“, “antiracism“, “birthing person” or “transgender“.

Remember, words carry ideas that shape how people think about reality. Where did these words and ideas come from? Well, they originated in the academy (universities).

Familiar words have been re-defined. Words like, “justice”, “racism”, “tolerance”, “equity” and “truth” don’t mean what they meant just a few years ago. Fifty years ago, people would be perplexed if you told them you were transgender. No one would would understand what you meant if you told them you were fighting for “climate justice” or “equity”.

Why do academic activists manipulate and distort language?

Here’s the short answer. When attaining cultural (hegemonic) and political power are the goals, distorting and weaponizing language is in the realm of options. Progressive academics who have colonized our universities and schools know that words can confuse, silence and break the will of their political enemies.

Don’t be fooled or lulled asleep by nice-sounding words (justice, antiracist, equity). Those words don’t mean what you think they mean. No, words are their preferred weapons of war. Don’t believe me. Try to debate a progressive activist on the merit of their ideas, or logical consistency, rational coherence, or basic reason, it will not be long before they call you a name (racist, sexist, bigot, intolerant, deployable, misogynist, etc).

A word of caution, not every liberal-leaning self-described ‘progressive’ thinks this way. I have many liberal friends with whom I disagree and debate. They don’t buy into the total war of leftist progressivism bent on destroying political enemies to obtain power. So, don’t go out there attacking everyone who uses suspect words and language. Marx, Alinsky, and Marcuse would love it if you responded that way (if they were alive). Instead, pause and think.

How does one respond?

“A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.”
Proverbs 15:1

Ask questions like, “What do you mean by that?” Help each other define terms. “What do you mean by justice?” And when you use a word or phrase in a disagreement or debate, pause and define it for the person.

For example, “When I say, “tolerance”, I mean it in the traditional sense which means I will endure or allow for disagreement. In other words, we can disagree without being disagreeable. Is that fair for you?”

Who wields cultural power?
Whoever tells the stories that shape the cultural imagination. Whoever creates ideas and concepts that diffuse throughout a population over a period of time. This is accomplished through language.

From a biblical perspective, we understand that the Word (logos) that grounds and shapes total reality in truth is found in God. In the beginning God created… He said, “let their be…” It was by His word that all creation, reality, language and culture came to be. So, God gets to define reality, not academic activists. Someone once said (using a baseball analogy), “Reality gets to bat last.”  In other words, reality and truth have the last say… It doesn’t matter what you believe. If what you believe is not grounded in reality, sooner or later you’ll face negative, sometimes devastating consequences.

Furthermore, Christians ought to reside in the spheres of academics and art where the concepts are argued and stories are told. We tell the truth about total reality through God’s Word and His created order.

In conclusion, we must recover language and words that have been highjacked and distorted. We must ground them in their biblical meaning. Why? Because language shapes reality and how we understand the world we live in. If you we can’t articulate current reality, there will be dire consequences. Progressive Marxists know this.

If we do not take back language and plant it in the bedrock of truth, reality and the world around us will grow more confusing and chaotic.

All truth is God’s truth. Remember that.