Pastor Ed Young’s rant against Reformed theology

Note: This isn’t about the pros and cons of Reformed theology, so save those comments.  This is about using proper arguments.

Ed Young, a mega-church pastor, gave a rant against Reformed theology in this clip. This is a classic example of straw-man (putting words in the mouth of your opponents) and ad hominem (attacking the person instead of the argument) fallacies.

This was bad on many levels.  There wasn’t one biblical argument made and no examples of refuting anything Reformed people actually claim.

The “You’re putting God in a box” line could by used by both sides, which means it proves nothing.  He pretends that people actually say they have “God in a box.”  He makes plenty of claims about God, so it seems hypocritical of him to make this claim.  And God has revealed at least part of himself in scripture.  If he thinks we’ve misinterpreted it, then he should explain why.  But by Young’s definition, anyone claiming to know anything about God would be guilty of “putting him in a box.”

Young’s practices are so bad that he regularly shows up on anti-heresy sights.  I’ve seen clips of him using creepy high-pressure giving tactics.  He promoted his sex book by being on a bed on the roof of his church with his wife (does he even know the rooftop story about David’s son Absolam?).

He says Reformed people are mean-spirited?!  Has he listened to his own message?

He makes nonsensical statements about the Reformed people being focused on fashion when he is the one who put on a fashion show.

He says the Reformed folks are pushing the social gospel?!  In my experience, I haven’t come across one Reformed person guilty of that.  They are usually the first to criticize it.

Despite what he says, we don’t claim to know who the elect are and we certainly don’t ignore the non-elect.  From one of the YouTube comments:

Calvinists never reach people with the Gospel? Tell that to Edwards, Whitefield, Spurgeon, Sproul, Pink, Packer, Carey, Bunyan, Owen, and others like them.

Ed says he baptized lots of people.  So what?  Ed thinks he is reaching people, but how can he be sure he isn’t just making false converts?

He says his critics are pajama-wearing basement bloggers?  Sure.  Then he says he doesn’t have time to call names.

If you have time, listen to James White’s analysis here.  Young is obviously feeling very threatened.  White concedes that perhaps Young was offended by some inexperienced Reformed people who should be “caged” until they mature.  But even then Young’s comments were still fact-free.

People like him make me even more Reformed.

Confused atheists

I saw this well designed but self-refuting graphic on Facebook.  

Those are fairly common sentiments of atheists.  If I had more time I’d re-write it all sorts of different ways, but I’ll just share what another person noted:

If you are hungry, that’s too bad. If you are thirsty, find a water fountain. If you are cold, get to the shelter. If you are in need, good luck. If you are in trouble, don’t bother me about it. I have this attitude because I have no concern for ultimate reward or consequence. I can act like this because it’s right for me. I am an atheist.

That highlights the flaws in the picture.  If you get to make up your own standards then you can proudly follow them all you like.  But you can’t explain why it is a universal good to be proud of them.  And you can even be proud of not adhering to your standards, provided that one of your standards is hypocrisy.  Note that I’m giving the benefit of the doubt to the atheist in question that he actually does all those things.

And you can’t “know them to be right” if everyone gets to set their own standards. Such is the endless problem of atheists, having no grounding for moral claims yet not being able to go three sentences without making them.

One atheist wrote this, ignoring that he has no evidence for his position, that we’re not worried and that we do enjoy our lives.  They think it is meaningful to prove that life is meaningless.

Sorry but I have to admit: There is no god. So stop worrying and enjoy your life!

Their worldview can’t explain ours — other than positing that Darwinian evolution randomly led to me convert from atheism to trusting in the evidence for the life, death and resurrection of Jesus — but our worldview can explain theirs.

Romans 1:18-20 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

Roundup

Bad Doctrine is a Cruel Taskmaster – The term doctrine sounds dry and boring to some people, but the Bible could not be more clear about the importance of sound doctrine.  The first link has a list of many bad things that happen when we believe false teachings. The best antidote is to read the Bible.  A lot.

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I’m a Reformed Christian at a Baptist church, and I approve of this joke via Pastor Timothy (at least I think it was a joke . . .).

The argument between Reformed Presbyterians and Reformed Baptist essentially boils down to the following statements:

BAPTIST: “You Presbyterians use too little water too early!”

PRESBYTERIANS: “You Baptists use too much water too late!”

There, now you have it.

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The war on women of color?  Union leader smashes pinata with picture of Nikki Haley on it.  Would the media reaction have differed if the union person was a Tea Partier and the pinata had a picture of a Democrat who was a minority?

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I assume this quote is about the cessation of some spiritual gifts, an argument I haven’t researched much.  But he makes a good point about the false teachers.

If signs and wonders did still exist, do you think they would be given to people with bad theology? You think God would give Benny Hinn the power to do miracles to authenticate really bad theology? If those gifts existed, they would belong to the purest, most faithful, sound teachers of the word of God to authenticate their teaching–not to hair-brained people who spew out whatever comes into their head.  – John MacArthur

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The Perils of Polygamy — Polygamy is bad for men, women, children and society in general.  But do the pro-”same-sex marriage” folks advocate for polygamy with the same passion and reasoning that they do for their pet cause, or are they shameless, bigoted haters?  Seems to me that the case for polygamy, as flawed as it is, is superior to the one for “same-sex marriage.”  After all, polygamous marriages involve a man and a woman, which can produce children and provide a mother and father to them — albeit in a far less desirable way than traditional marriage.

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CNN Urges Normal Couples to Emulate Homosexuals’ Promiscuity – That’s impossible!  They must be taking things out of context, right?  Nope.

According to “eminent marriage therapist” John Gottman,

“Straight couples may have a lot to learn from gay and lesbian relationships.”

For example,

“A number of my gay clients prefer to be sexually open but emotionally monogamous,” says sex and relationship therapist Joe Kort. “They can have lovers on the side and not have it be a threat to the relationship.”

It’s a type of male coupledom that sex columnist Dan Savage has famously termed “monogamish” …

I’m going to ignore that advice.

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Obama 2004 Campaign Flashback: Bush Deficit Is An “Enormous Problem” – yep.

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Fashion show at church – worse than it sounds.

Most pastors are probably not terribly concerned about the fashion statement they make from the pulpit … certainly not enough to start a web site devoted to the topic. But Ed Young, senior pastor of Fellowship Church, a mega-church in the Dallas-Fort Worth area is not most pastors. In February of this year, he launched Pastor Fashion, which is devoted to exploring how “the men and women of God [can] set the standard for the rest of the world in fashion as well as faith.”

. . .

Yikes. One might be concerned that Young is too focused on outward appearances … and they would probably be right. On this point, he told ABC News: “You need to make the cover as good as possible so people will read the book.” . . .

“We should be at the forefront of fashion,” he told ABC News. “I think we have the ultimate message and should dress up with the times.” Staying up on the trends of the times sounds like quite a luxury … not something God actually expects of his followers. Perhaps the fact that people frequently notice Young’s hip clothes and consult him for fashion advice should serve as a warning to focus less on external appearances, rather than more.

This is one more reason I’m glad I moved to Reformed theology. I don’t have to waste a single moment worried that if I don’t have just the right shirt on that someone won’t get saved.

Years ago I used to catch Young’s father on the radio and he seemed pretty sound.  If his father isn’t embarrassed about his son, then he should be embarrassed about not being embarrassed.

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Another boomerang for Obama – Guess who got the most private-equity money in 2008? – So if he is too critical of Romney & Bain he looks more like a hypocrite and risks losing their donations this time.

The first rule of holes: When you are in one, stop digging

We will all make bad arguments at some point.  What we do at that stage is very important.  Do we stand corrected, or do we dig in our heels out of pride?  One bad argument can undermine ten good ones, so it is important for us to be correctable.  Not just for our own intellectual honesty, but for our witness as Christians.

As I emphasize when teaching how and why to read Bible verses in context, I have made many mistakes over the years.  When I realized I had misunderstood Philippians 4:13 or Jeremiah 29:11, for example, I had a choice.  I could keep using the wrong interpretations of these verses, or I could change and use the right ones.

An atheism site had a somewhat useful flowchart about rational debating. (Although they conflated debating and discussion — one can be so thoroughly versed on a topic that they can’t reasonable envision something would change his mind and still debate or discuss something).

Interestingly, while they obviously meant this to imply that Christians don’t follow these rules — and I concede that many do not — I have found atheists to break many of these repeatedly. That is especially true on item 2 about moving on to new arguments once you’ve been shown to have used an inaccurate data point. You can refute their arguments in detail and they just move to the next item in their Big Book O’ Atheist Sound Bites. That’s when you know it is pearl holding / dust shaking time.

I also find that they think they don’t need to offer evidence.  They just point to the views of their monopolistic leaders and assume that is adequate.  Science has been wrong for hundreds or even thousands of years at a stretch, so just because their dear leaders insist something is true doesn’t mean the facts support them.

I find this with false or “saved and confused” Christians as well.  For example, no matter how many times you point out how fallacious it is to say, “Jesus never said anything about homosexual behavior / abortion,” they still repeat that tired sound bite, along with many other pro-gay theology arguments.  It is a bad sign when people can’t be corrected.

It is a good thing to change your views when confronted with valid reasons to do so.  People often stereotype Christians as being close minded, but to be a Christian means that at some point in time one had to admit he was completely wrong about God and the universe and then changed his mind.  I wasn’t feeling unpopular enough as a mere Christian, so after years of investigation I switched to Reformed theology.  We won’t debate that on this thread and my switch doesn’t make me right, I just point it out to note that I had every reason to stay on the other side but was ultimately persuaded to change because I kept an open mind.

So don’t let your pride get in the way of rational discussions and defending the faith!  If you get stumped, don’t say something false.  Just say I don’t know, but I’ll find out, then go do some research and get back to the person.  In the mean time, feel free to shift the discussion back to what you do know — namely that Jesus lived, died and rose again and saved your soul — and encourage them to read the Bible.  Then let God’s word do what He promised it would.

Prison ministry visits

We had our monthly visit to the prison to follow up with the guys who have been on Kairos Prison Ministry weekends.  It was the usual routine of donuts, singing, small group sharing and testimonies.

A few testimonies stuck out, as usual.  One was from a guy who was a gang leader both outside and then inside prison.  I wish you could have seen his demeanor.  He is a truly changed man since his Kairos weekend.  Complete peace.  For him, the Kairos weekend was the greatest time of his life.  He admitted he just went for the food, but that changed halfway through the weekend.  He forgot about all the things that used to consume him: Drugs, money, women and generating fear in others.  As you can imagine, vulnerability is not winning strategy in prison.  But he is so Christ-focused now that he can authentically say he isn’t worried about trying to make people fear or respect him anymore.  He is just looking for ways to love people.  He is focused on continuing to transform so he can be a great father and break the cycle.

Another man spoke of his childhood and extensive abuse at the hands of his family.  He had a major breakthrough during the forgiveness exercises of the weekend and said he regained the innocence that was stolen from him in his youth.

Yet another spoke of going from being a major drug dealer to getting “high” on singing in the prison choir.  His daughter visits and can’t believe he is the same person she used to know.

It is like that every month.  If you’ve ever thought about getting involved in prison ministry in some way, I urge you to follow through.  There are lots of great ministries out there, and this is one of them.  God uses it to changes lives for eternity.  I never get tired of seeing lives changed by the Holy Spirit.  God ordains the ends and the means, and one of his means is using his followers as bearers of his love.  Over and over I’ve seen God use that as the catalyst, along with the other things they’ve learned, to radically transform people for eternity.

High pressure sales tactics or “take it or leave it?”

I’m not saying it is all one or the other, but what do you think the biblical model of sharing the Gospel is more like?

A. High pressure sales tactics
B. Take it or leave it

I submit that it is more like “B.”  Of course we pray for people and earnestly hope for their salvation, but ultimately it is between them and God.  We’re on the Great Commission, not the paid commission.

When Jesus encounters the rich young ruler and tells him what he must do to attain eternal life, the man walks away sadly.  Then Jesus runs and tackles him and preaches to him some more.

Oh, wait, that last part never happened.  The man walked away and we never hear of him again, even though Jesus loved him.

And consider Paul’s journeys.  While he sometimes stayed in the same place for a while, the typical model seemed to be: Preach, get beat up, leave.  Or, at best:

Acts 17: 32-24 Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.” So Paul went out from their midst. But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.

On the flip side, the book of Hebrews does say three times that:

So, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you hear his voice,  do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the desert . . .

So there is nothing wrong with conveying some sense of urgency to the appeal.

But some evangelism models involve pressuring people to decide, and they border on manipulation — or they jump across the border.  As the saying goes, if I can manipulate people into professing belief based on worldly techniques then someone else can talk them out of it.  And Satan is smarter than I am.  False conversions harm the person and the church.

Consider how few of the typical “converts” of revivals stick around:

 In the Assembly of God’s 1990s “Decade of Harvest,” out of the 3.5 million supposedly converted, they showed a net gain of only 5 new attenders for every 100 recorded professions. When one considers all of our supposed converts, including those who refuse to follow Christ in baptism and who never join our churches, our numbers are much the same. Doesn’t anybody see that there is a serious problem here?

I want to point people to the Bible and let the Holy Spirit do the work.  I reflexively work in key themes to spiritual conversations and am glad to unflinchingly affirm doctrines about the authority and accuracy of the Bible, the divinity and exclusivity of Jesus, the existence of Hell, the minimal facts, etc.  But it is all with an aim to get them to read for themselves.  I trust God to do what He promised:

Isaiah 55:10-11 For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

I also think that in terms of how the world views the church we come across as much more confident in our views if we just lay them out in a rational way instead of using emotional tricks.  People are bombarded with ads and gimmicks and we shouldn’t be a part of that.  2 Corinthians 4:1-6 explains this well:

Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,”has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

No tricks or high pressure, just sharing the truth in love.  Only God can make spiritually dead people alive.  We just want to be obedient to his model.

Finally, there are the pearl holding / dust shaking teachings of Jesus.  He told us not to press the issue with those who aren’t interested.  We need to be bold but also to trust his timing.

If you have the gift of evangelism, then get out and preach.  If you don’t, then be ready to fulfill your jobs as apologists and ambassadors to share the truth in a winsome way to a world that desperately needs it. Don’t sugarcoat the truth, but don’t feel the need to win every soul you encounter.  You are being obedient to God regardless of whether the person converts or not.  

Said another way, if you are an Arminian then high pressure techniques are counterproductive.  If you are Reformed, then they are unnecessary.

The basics of Intelligent Design

The ever-crumbling Darwinian evolution propaganda is so deliberately and aggressively politicized in education and the media and so venomous towards alternative theories that it is hard to have a reasoned discussion about Intelligent Design.  So few people understand the basic premise, which is simple, clear and elegant.  Via What is the case for intelligent design?

Intelligent design is a scientific theory that holds some aspects of life and the universe are best explained by reference to an intelligent cause. Why? Because they contain the type of complexity and information that in our experience comes only from intelligence.

As a result, intelligent-design theorists begin by studying how intelligent agents act when they design things. Intelligence is a process, or a mechanism, which we can observe at work in the world around us. Human designers make a great dataset for studying how intelligent agency works.

When we study the actions of humans, we learn that intelligent agents produce high levels of complex and specified information (CSI). Something is complex if it’s unlikely, and specified if it matches some independent pattern. William Dembski and Stephen Meyer explain that in our experience, only intelligent agents produce this type of information . . .

People infer design all day, every day — especially in science.  Consider forensic science, archaeology and the search for extra-terrestrial life, where constant inferences to intelligent causes are foundational.

One way to get the average person to reconsider the concept of ID is to point out examples like that.  I was talking to a friend this week who is obviously uncomfortable with Darwinism but has never been taught to consider alternative views.  In the same conversation he referenced a TV show about some highly complex ancient ruins that were were so precisely made that they “must” have been made by aliens.  That was a good catalyst for me to compare those obviously designed (whether by aliens or humans) works to something like DNA, which is not only thousands of times more complex but also part of living beings.

If people are quick to assume alien origins for something complex, or even just realizing it would have required unusually advanced human intelligence, why do they drink the Darwinian Kool-Aid and assume that the origin of life, the complexities of DNA, etc. could have arisen without an Intelligent Designer?  They just need to know the real definition of ID and the well-documented fact that materialists cheat and assume that you can’t consider the supernatural when trying to explain something like the origins of life.

Atheists and authority

The Wintery Knight asked, Does God pose an authority problem for you? and offers an excellent analysis of the common answers.

It reminds me of an episode of The Simpsons where an old man is getting a hearing test.  The extremely nice lady politely tells him to do something for the test, and he grumbles back, “You can’t tell me what to do!”  It was such a clever way to show how we rebel just for the sake of rebelling.  Most of my youthful (and, er, uh, adult) missteps were the same sorts of things: Pure rebellion.  Just stickin’ it to the man — or so I thought.  As usual, our rebellion hurts us and not God.

Revelation 16:8-9 notes how people will know there is a God but would rather curse him than repent and glorify him:

The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and the sun was given power to scorch people with fire. They were seared by the intense heat and they cursed the name of God, who had control over these plagues, but they refused to repent and glorify him.

Romans 1 is always handy to explain this phenomenon as well:

Romans 1:18-20 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

Oddly enough, spiritually dead people do exactly what you’d expect spiritually dead people to do.

We should pray for them, ask God to make them spiritually alive and then be ready to be used by God to share his truths with anyone who is interested.

Discernment in giving

It isn’t enough just to donate money.  We need to be good stewards of what God gave us and ensure we are donating to trustworthy and effective organizations.  I was encouraged by this article by Kevin DeYoung on Help for the Poor that Really Helps.  The ministries we’ve supported in Kenya, Honduras and elsewhere do these things well.

Note how low fair-trade coffee is relative to other endeavors.  Oh, and note how clicking the “Like” button on Facebook isn’t on the list.

Christians can too easily settle for good intentions. We usually support programs that make us feel good without considering whether they actually do good. We need to be smarter about actually thinking through which poverty strategies are most effective. “To answer this question” Wydick writes, “I polled top development economists who specialize in analyzing development programs. I asked them to rate, from 0 to 10, some of the most common poverty interventions to which ordinary people donate their money, in terms of impact and cost-effectiveness per donated dollar.”

These were the results:

1. Get clean water to rural villages (Rating: 8.3)

2. Fund de-worming treatments for children (Rating: 7.8)

3. Provide mosquito nets (Rating: 7.3)

4. Sponsor a child (Rating: 6.9)

5. Give wood-burning stoves (Rating: 6.0)

6. Give a micro-finance loan (Rating 4.2)

7. Fund reparative surgeries (Rating: 3.9)

8. Donate a farm animal (Rating 3.8)

9. Drink fair-trade coffee (Rating. 1.9)

10. Give a kid a laptop (1.8)

Of course, we want to ensure that these ministries are sharing the Gospel with people as well.  Poor people without Jesus go to Hell just like rich people without Jesus do.

Screwtape starts a blog

If you like satire, check out Satan’s Blog.  It is akin to what C.S. Lewis might have done if blogging was around when he wrote The Screwtape Letters.  Sometimes considering the perspective of what Satan wants makes it more clear what God wants.

From Obama is NOT a Muslim! You MUST believe me and help me convince others!

Regardless of whether Obama is truly a Muslim or not, he clearly, by his actions, is not a Christian.

And that’s all I care about.

I don’t care what people say they are.  Half the people in Hell say they were Christians.  Big deal.  They didn’t act like it.

And Obama, because he has no core values beyond those of a socialistic worldview, will, if pushed, shamelessly act like a Christian.  And if Obama starts acting like a Christian, my kingdom on earth will suffer.

And I don’t like to suffer.

From Me and Rush Limbaugh’s big mouth!

The dictator was dictating that other people must, based on His Dictateness alone, pay for the sex needs of all women everywhere, including one Ms. Sandra Fluke, a 30-year-old privileged law student going to one of the most expensive law schools in the country.

In a fit of pride, I gloated a rhetorical question: “Where are the sane Americans?”

Remember?

And then I asked this fateful question:

Where is someone to stand up and tell Ms. Keely and Ms. Sandra to stop begging for someone else’s money and control their own friggin’ bodies or go pay for their own damn birth control?

Well, that’s when my luck turned, and out of nowhere surfaced One Sane American.

. . .

He is Conservative One, and he nailed this one: on what basis should taxpayers or insurers (i.e., other people) be required to pay for women’s recreational (and apparently uncontrollable) sex needs?

Hat tip: Sifting Reality

God’s unconditional love. Sort of.

Mark from Facebook was lamenting his church’s overly simple “Remember, God loves everyone” billboard.  It is true in a sense, of course.  As Marie noted there, Jesus loved the rich young ruler who walked away and He commanded us to love our enemies.

A former church of ours had the “God loves you unconditionally” message preached nearly every week and posted on a local billboard.  While it was true in a particular sense, they never finished the sentence: “And He’ll unconditionally send you to Hell for eternity if you don’t repent and believe.”

My guess is that many people read the message on the billboard and thought, “That’s great — I don’t have to change a thing and don’t even have a reason to go to their church.  I’ve heard all I need from the experts.”

Eternity is a mighty long time to hold bad theology.  Another good Facebook find this morning was a link our pastor posted: My Take: Stop sugar-coating the Bible.  That was surprisingly good for CNN. Too many people don’t realize that by editing the word they are making a god in their own image and not seeking the real God.

Do I like to share the truth of God’s love?  Absolutely!  But we must be careful not to distill it down so far that it loses its real meaning.

Remember that even the oft-misused John 3:16 notes that without believing in Jesus people will perish eternally, and the following verses make it even more clear.

16 “For God so loved the world,that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

 

Science already recognizes Intelligent Design

It has for a long, long time.  As Greg Koukl notes, consider archaeology, forensics and the search for extra terrestrial intelligence. All infer, with good reason, that you can detect whether something happened without being caused by another agent or whether there was an intelligent being behind the creation of something.

The movie “Contact” was a shining example of the self-parody of materialists.  While mocking those who believe in Intelligent Design, their litmus test for extraterrestrial life was whether patterns they viewed had evidence of design.

Forensics is all about looking for evidence of design. And archaeology correctly infers design.

We agree there is a gap in understanding some things about the universe. The Darwinists plug it with the “naturalism of the gaps.”  They don’t know what caused it, but it definitely wasn’t an intelligent designer. They have no argument other than blind faith.  We don’t have the same gap.  We logically infer from the evidence that some things — such as life and the indescribable complexity and design of the universe — had to have come from a powerful designer.  Even atheists like Richard Dawkins concede that the universe appears to be designed.

Responding to a common pro-gay theology argument

My post asking if the Bible was unclear on homosexuality brought this somewhat predictable comment. It never made reference to the Bible, it just repeated all sorts of un-biblical fallacies.  Sadly, this is no straw man comment.  Lots of people claiming the name of Christ repeat these arguments.

quite a few of my friends are gay. I am not. But knowing them, i know with all my heart they were born – created – gay. It is not something they chose to be.

I’ve had a lot of gay friends as well.  I don’t get in their face about it any more than I do that with the sins of heterosexual friends.  But I also don’t teach that any sins of my friends are acceptable to God.

You “know” that with your “heart?”  Emotions are nice, but not a good way to make decisions.  Please consider Paul’s prayer in Philippians 1:9-11 –  And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

Please note how he links love with knowledge and discernment.

I encourage you to read some research on the causes of homosexuality.  It is not genetic.

And even if they were “born that way,” it is a biblical concept that we are born with a sinful nature.  We don’t get an “ought” from an “is.”  Sadly, I’ve been really effective at coveting, pride and selfishness since I was little, but I don’t get a pass on those sins because I was “born that way.”

God is LOVE. God loves all of us. How could He not love people HE created gay?

I mean this in a most serious and kind way: How much of the Bible have you studied?  Do you not see how you could apply that to any sin?  Do you not see how seriously God treats sin?  My #1 recommendation to anyone debating any topic on Christianity is to read the Bible more.

God wants US to love one another. Treat one another with love and acceptance.

That argument assumes that homosexuality isn’t sinful, but it doesn’t explain why we should hold that view.  Can you show me in the Bible where we are taught to accept any sin?  How about 1 Corinthians 5?

I do not believe it is the right of any of us to judge any other person – only God.

But aren’t you judging me and others who hold the view that homosexual behavior is a sin (along with many other behaviors)?

I do not believe it’s about whether their behaviour is sinful or not. Who of us is without sin?

But it is about whether the behavior is sinful.  That’s the point of the discussion, and you’ve already claimed it isn’t sinful. But the burden of proof is on you to reason your case from the Bible.

The fact that we are all sinners doesn’t mean that we would encourage people to remain in sin.

The really Christian thing to do is love your neighbour. I love my gay friends, and they are beautiful and in some cases deeply Christian – more Christian than many so called Christians who have rejected them for their sexuality.

Your love for your friends isn’t the Biblical love of having their long-term best interests at heart.  If anyone teaches the opposite of the Bible then I don’t think it is correct to describe them as “deeply Christian.”

We don’t reject them for their sexuality, we love them enough to speak the truth.  I urge you to read the Bible thoroughly and reconsider your views.

Do you know when you were saved? Does it matter?

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Of course it matters if you are saved.  But does it matter if you don’t know the exact moment of your conversion?

Some Christians make a big deal out of knowing the exact day and time you were saved.  Since one’s salvation is such a monumentally important thing I can see how they might expect you to know the time with precision.  Yet is that an important biblical concept?

If you study the Bible, and especially 1 John, you’ll find that there is quite a bit to say about analyzing if you are really saved, but I can’t find anything that says you need to know the exact moment.

If people do have a specific moment and a dramatic conversion moment, that is great.  But plenty of people have dramatic “conversions” yet would seem to fail the 1 John tests. And plenty of people pass those tests without having a dramatic and specific story.  Note that their ultimate state is between them and God; I’m just offering scenarios here.

I’ve trusted in Jesus for my salvation for a long time but can’t describe a precise moment when I went from unsaved to saved.

Sadly, some people may have a false sense of security because they know when they prayed “the prayer,” but it wasn’t an authentic conversion.

I think the important thing biblically is to make sure that you are saved and not worrying about exactly when it occurred.  John MacArthur has a great book on this topic called Saved without a Doubt: Being Sure of Your Salvation. If you struggle with doubts, get that book.  If you aren’t really saved, you need to know it so you can get saved.  If you are saved then you need to start living in confidence.

And if someone makes a big deal out of knowing when you were saved, you can always just reply, “2,000 years ago.”

If you want to hear from God . . .

If you want to hear from God, read the Bible.

If you want to hear from God audibly, read the Bible out loud.

Seriously, the Bible is God’s preferred method of speaking to people.  It is possible that He could use some other means such as an angel or a dream, but it is not likely.  And if He does speak in some way outside the Bible, the message will never contradict anything in the Bible.  This is good news, not bad news, because it means you can hear from him anytime you want.

You can learn about what God is like, why Jesus the Son came (to save lost sinners), what the chief problem of man is (sin), how to be forgiven for all your sins and be reconciled to him, how to best live your life, how to love others, how to be a better spouse / parent / friend, and much more.  No one should go through life without reading the book written by the inspiration of the creator of the universe.

Make no mistake: The original writings turned out exactly as God and the human writers wanted them to, and it has been reliably transmitted to us.

If you’ve never read all of the Bible, this is the year.  Here’s a carrot: I guarantee that you won’t regret it.  You are actually spending time with God as you read it and learning what He wanted you to know.  It will accomplish what He desires and achieve the purpose for which He sent it (Isaiah 55).

Here’s the stick for Christians: If you don’t read it, I’m going to pray that atheists ask you why you claim the name of Christ without having a desire to read what He is trying to communicate to you.  They might even ask how you can be sure you should be following him if you haven’t taken the time to read the primary writings about him.  They might ask how many other books and magazines you read and how much TV you watch rather than read what your Savior has to say. (I recommend going with the carrot.)  Seriously, make this the year you start reading it regularly.

You don’t have to read it in a year, though that is a reasonable goal if you’ve never done it.  Hey, at least read the New Testament!  It is shorter than most novels.  Just pick it up each day and read something.

Here are some great Bible reading plans.  I’m really enjoying going through it chronologically.  It weaves things like the messages of the prophets into the historical accounts of the kings they preached to, and it puts the Psalms in where the related historical events occurred and/or when they were written.

Or try listening to the Bible if you are more of an auditory person.  You can get free downloads of the New Testament and reasonably priced downloads of the entire Bible.

Just read it.

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Bonus: This great message, courtesy of Brandon.  I love how it highlights that if someone claims God told them something then the burden of proof is on them to prove it.

Theological liberals vs. militant atheists — which do you prefer?

I was watching a theological liberal do his usual false teachings on this thread and noted with amusement how the atheists cheerily agreed with his religious views.  I pointed out that both should be concerned over that.  If they agreed on their favorite sports teams that would be fine.  But if an atheist or someone from another religion agreed with my foundational points about God I’d be very concerned.

Yes, militant atheists can be annoying, but I’ll take twenty of them over a fake Christian any day.  At least the atheists are fulfilling their job descriptions and there is no confusion over roles.  But the fake Christians really confuse the discussions and fuel the atheists’ false assertions that disagreements within Christianity mean that the religion can’t be true.  Their argument fails on many levels, but the actions of the false teachers give them ammunition.  That was a key theme on the link above: “Christianity must be false because Christians disagree.”

Of course, Christianity clearly predicts divisions:

1. Many warnings of false teachers and many references to the importance of sound doctrine.
2. The fact that Christians learn more over time — “milk/meat,” growing in knowledge (Philippians 1:9), etc.
3. God’s guidance about disputable matters in Romans 14 and elsewhere reveals that He knew we’d have disputable matters and gave us guidance in how to handle them.
4. Some people think they are saved but aren’t (“I never knew you” from Matthew 7, testing your salvation in 1 John, etc.)
5. We are told not to violate our consciences, so people are right to worship in denominations that align best with their views on non-essential issues.

Based on that, if all Christians agreed on everything then that would be evidence that the Bible’s predictions failed.  The essentials are what divides Christianity from other religions: Jesus deity, his exclusivity, etc.  You can’t take the Bible seriously and miss those, which is another way of highlighting false teachers.  Example: The fake at the thread thought I was wrong to say that Christians must hold the view that Jesus is the only way to salvation.  My point was simply that if the Bible mentions it 100 times then it seems like something Christians should agree with.

Christianity has fought a two-front war from the beginning: Persecutors on the outside and false teachers on the inside.  Things haven’t changed, so we need to be on guard for both.

I think the bigger enemy is inside.