The Roman Catholic Church went through the process and ritual of selecting the next Pope, the head of that institution. By all accounts Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the man who has chosen the name, “Francis” has great humility. He cooked is own food, rode the bus rather than having a limo and doesn’t even wear flashy shoes. He is very concerned about the poor but the liberal media is in utter shock! The new pope is not in favor of same gender marriage or abortion. Not even contraception. Imagine, they hired a Roman Catholic to head the church! At times I thought some of the news personalities were going to become apoplectic. On one of the FOX shows Juan Williams expressed his dismay at the Pope’s lack of being up with the times and it was pointed out that the Pope is Roman Catholic and a requirement in taking the position is a pledge to uphold and defend the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. Juan than said that lots of American Roman Catholics favor same gender marriage and abortion. The host then pointed out that the Church is NOT a democratic institution. Perhaps part of the problem is that our President and Congress also swear to uphold and defend the Constitution but once sworn in ignore their commitment and go on to do whatever they want in violation of the Constitution. Honesty, integrity and fidelity are not highly valued commodities among liberals and progressives. Continue reading …

Dear Reader, I was prepared to write this week about a really bad  Abortion Argument on Salon.com. But it seems that stupid arguments must alas trump bad arguments. Self-proclaimed “thought leader” Steve McSwain decided to vent his frustration with American Christianity by posting “6 Things Christians Should Just Stop Saying” at the mixed-bag that is Huffington Post. This particular post follows his other attempts at criticism such as “I Wish Christian Preachers Would Just Shut Up“  and “Why Christianity is Dying but Spirituality is Thriving.”

As I read through McSwain’s commentary I was struck with what I hope is righteous indignation but I’m humble enough to admit is probably my sin nature bathed in deep and cultivated sense of sarcasm. My friends, there are some things that people say with such thoughtless disregard for both decency and logic, that perhaps the only appropriate response is sarcasm.

Douglas Wilson has defended the use of sarcasm in Christian commentary with his book, A Serrated Edge: A Brief Defense of Biblical Satire and Trinitarian Skylarking. He points out several examples of the use of satire in the Bible. When Elijah taunted the prophets of Baal who were desperately trying to make a altar burn, I smugly imagine he was feeling the way I was when I read McSwain.  Before I launch into my snark, I would like you to know that I have thought and prayed over how to respond to McSwain’s post. I even sought council from several Godly people to make sure I wasn’t simply wallowing in angst or just trying to make a name for myself. After seeking their council, they agreed: Continue reading …

I became a Christian in the mid-1970s. The winds of cultural change were already evident in good old America. Even though it had long been a nation which operated on Judeo/Christian morals and values, Progressivism had been doing its work slowly in universities and amongst politicians for 60 or 70 years. Even though the nation has a sort of a Christian hangover, still generally holding biblical values in the main, it was cultural but not necessarily tied to any embrace of biblical faith. The Barna Research Group recently released its material on America’s Most Bible Minded Cities. The statistics were not overly surprising to me but rather served to confirm something we at MCOI have said for quite a long time. We need missionaries to America! In fact we did an article in our Journal in 1999 titled, of all things, Missionaries to America? A little more than a decade later, in 2011, I revisited the topic in Missionaries to America – Deux. I won’t reprise either of them today but do think Barna’s research demonstrates something we have raised on more than one occasion. The church, for all of its attempt at remaking itself in order to have a broader appeal, has lost its sense of mission and as a result its impact on and influence in culture. Continue reading …

I had a phone call last week in response to one of the Snarky Apologist YouTube videos about Jehovah’s Witnesses. The caller started, “You are really mean in your presentation. Can’t you focus on issues without attacking others?” I listened and didn’t point out the obvious, that they were emotional and attacking me. After a few minutes I responded with a stock statement I have been using for years now, “You may be right. I may be mean. I may even be short and fat but the real issue is, where are we wrong?” The caller hesitated for a moment, not sure what to do with the response. I then pointed out that the video did address actual issues and even though they became emotionally worked up over the material that doesn’t mean that we resorted to an emotional attack devoid of facts. We ended up talking for nearly an hour and they are in the process of verifying a number of issues we covered.

A few days later I had a call from someone that has been reading our book on Bill Gothard. The caller said they really had wanted to drop by the office to talk because they wanted to tell me face to face that our writings are mean-spirited and even though they disagree with Bill Gothard that does not mean we should be so mean-spirited in the way we write. After listening for a while I responded with Continue reading …

Many well meaning Christians, even those who have a fairly good grasp of Scripture, often try to defend their faith with what is rightfully called, Incorrigible truth. It is a claim or claims, which by definition cannot be corrected or falsified. Let me give you an example from the world of construction which I had happen years ago. I had built a suite of offices in Chicago. In this particular project one of the requirements was that we had the thermostats calibrated and the supply and return air ducts tested and balanced. We also had to check the relative humidity. All was completed and the reports submitted and accepted. The offices were then occupied. On one side of the space was a row of about 10 offices which were staffed by females. I am not certain gender was involved but it is at least possible. Continue reading …

A few weeks ago (August 8, 2012), Jon Trott of Jesus People USA (JPUSA) uploaded a post to their Wilson Station blog titled “Big Government in Texas Executes Man with 61 IQ.” It began as a concise protest against the execution of Marvin Wilson for the 1992 murder of a police informant in Beaumont, TX. In its first six paragraphs Jon made a plausible prima facie case for the impropriety of Wilson’s execution, given his diminished mental capacities. But it was Jon’s final, seventh, paragraph that caught my attention:

We continue to call on Texas to stop such executions. As Christians, we see no reasonable or ethical argument for the execution of *any* prisoners. Our Lord died via execution. We resist the culture of retribution.

Yowza! How does one jump from protesting the execution of the mentally incompetent to declaring that it is the Christian position (“As Christians,” he wrote) to denounce all executions? Was Jon not aware of the fact that it was God Himself who established the first death penalty (Genesis 9:5-6)? Does he not realize that his remarks imply that in doing so God established an unethical “culture of retribution?”

So, a few days later, Continue reading …

“Marley was dead to begin with . . . This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. “

I love that line. It’s from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. It’s an important concept because if Marley wasn’t dead then there would be nothing remarkable about Dickens’ ghost story. During Easter season, I found myself thinking about old Scrooge sitting there shaking uncontrollably from his first encounter with the possibility of the dead coming to visit. Unable to sleep because he can’t get the thought of what might have been a ghost that he saw in the door knocker. Of course in the comfort of his reasonable mind and soft house coat he realizes that what is nagging at his mind is almost surely nothing to lose sleep over. Just a bit of undigested beef right? More gravy than grave. But then again. What if it wasn’t? What if . . .

I found myself in the same sort of state as Scrooge once about 10 years ago. I had just finished reading Paul Maier’s novel A Skeleton in God’s Closet. Here’s a short plot outline. Continue reading …