Let’s Not Run From “Apologetics”

Posted on November 29, 2011 by clayjones

Someone suggested recently that perhaps our apologetics program should change its name to something less confrontational—like “religious studies”—so that it would be more palatable to non-Christians. Upon hearing that, Craig and I rent our garments, threw dust on our heads, and refused to eat until lunch.

But seriously, here’s why we like the word “apologetics.”

First, we find that prospective students actually like a name that suggests standing up for what you believe in. And why not? Paul argued daily in the temple. Jesus confronted the Pharisees non-stop (see my post “Arguing Doesn’t Do Any Good? Sure It Does!”). Our students want to defend the faith, not study the differences between religions.

Second, we are doing apologetics and any other suggestion that we’ve ever heard makes the program sound like it is something it isn’t or like it isn’t something it is.

Third, we want to be controversial in the sense that we want everyone to know that we are defending the truth of historic Christianity against all attacks. We want the skeptics to know that we exist and will answer them (see point one).

Fourth, other names sound like we are trying to hide (which we’re not, by the way).

Fifth, I find it a wonderful witnessing tool to have to explain to non-Christians what we are “apologizing for.” This has opened up many doors for me to share the Gospel.

Sixth, it also happens to be the biblical term for what we do. After all, the Greek word for “defense” in 1 Peter 3:15 is “apologia.”

Seventh, the problem for the average American Christian isn’t that they are too bold. Most Christians are extremely passive in communicating the Gospel. I’m reminded of C. S. Lewis’s comment that we always run to the side of the ship that is already gunwale under the waves. If we are going to err, then let us err on the side of boldness since many Christians err on the side of meekness (I don’t think we are in error, by the way).

Eighth, of course many non-Christians dislike that we actively, fervently, logically, and evidentially strive to proclaim that Christianity is, in fact, true and that because Christianity is true no argument can stand against it. Many don’t like that.

But that’s the way we roll.

Acts 18:27-28: Apollos “was a great help to those who by grace had believed. For he vigorously refuted the Jews in public debate, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.

Amen.

Posted in Apologetics, Evangelism | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Disaster Is Always a Call to Repentance!

Posted on November 10, 2011 by clayjones

I need to begin with a qualification: I’ve been embarrassed when some famous evangelical leaders (no, I’m not going to name names) have blamed people for the disaster they’ve suffered through. For example, I didn’t agree with blaming 9/11 on this sin or that or blaming the Haitian earthquake victims for the earthquake because they practiced Voodoo. We aren’t in a position to say why a particular disaster strikes a particular group.

Now, that being said, that doesn’t mean that disaster isn’t always a call to repentance. God certainly uses disaster, every disaster, that way. I’m just saying we shouldn’t pontificate as to specific reasons that a particular disaster strikes a particular people.

Consider Luke 13:1-5 where Jesus addresses the problem of suffering most clearly:

Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.

Here, then, we have an amazing parallel 9-11. Some are murdered and others are killed by a tower’s fall. I can’t do better than relate D. A. Carson’s insights about this passage1:

First, Jesus does not assume that those who suffered under Pilate, or those who were killed in the collapse of the tower, did not deserve their fate. Indeed, the fact that he can tell those contemporaries that unless they repent they too will perish shows that Jesus assumes that all death is in one way or another the result of sin, and therefore deserved.

Second, Jesus does insist that death by such means is no evidence whatsoever that those who suffer in this way are any more wicked than those who escape such a fate. The assumption seems to be that all deserve to die. If some die under a barbarous governor, and others in a tragic accident, it is not more than they deserve. But that does not mean that others deserve any less. Rather, the implication is that it is only God’s mercy that has kept them alive. There is certainly no moral superiority on their part.

Third, Jesus treats wars and natural disasters not as agenda items in a discussion of the mysterious ways of God, but as incentives to repentance. It is as if he is saying that God uses disaster as a megaphone to call attention to our guilt and destination, to the imminence of his righteous judgment if he sees no repentance. This is an argument developed at great length in Amos 4. Disaster is a call to repentance. Jesus might have added (as he does elsewhere) that peace and tranquility, which we do not deserve, show us God’s goodness and forbearance.

It is a mark of our lostness that we invert these two. We think we deserve the times of blessing and prosperity, and that the times of war and disaster are not only unfair but come perilously close to calling into question God’s goodness or his power—even, perhaps, his very existence. Jesus simply did not see it that way.

Bull’s-eye for Carson. Again and again in the Old Testament God uses disaster to encourage repentance. Rev. 16:8-11 says the Lord sends plagues, “but they refused to repent and glorify him.”

So when disaster strikes, let us not wring our hands over the mysterious ways of God but encourage everyone to reflect on their sinful and doomed state in hopes that some will escape the Final Disaster that awaits the ultimately unrepentant.

Jeremiah 5:3: “O LORD, do not your eyes look for truth? You have struck them down, but they felt no anguish; you have consumed them, but they refused to take correction. They have made their faces harder than rock; they have refused to repent.”

Amen.

  1. D. A. Carson, How Long, O Lord?: Reflections on Suffering and Evil (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker 1990), 66-67. [↩]
Posted in Apologetics, Uncategorized, Why God Allows Evil | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Let’s Connect the Moral Dots for “Good” Non-Christians

Posted on September 21, 2011 by clayjones

I ask my classes, “Why do gangbangers ever stop at red lights?” Some students suggest that they don’t want to be caught by the police. Sure. That might motivate them sometimes. But isn’t the real reason they stop that they don’t want to be broadsided by, say, an 18-wheeler traveling 50 miles per hour? But, if that’s their motive, then the reason they stop has nothing to do with respect for the law—it is about self-interest. That they stop has nothing to do with moral goodness.

Likewise, why does the man who hates his ex-wife not murder her? We’ve already established that it is not because he cares for her: he hates her. Then why not murder? Isn’t it because of the fear of being found out and then losing his family, his friends, his reputation, his freedom, and perhaps even his life? But if he refrains from murder for selfish reasons, then isn’t he still, really, a murderer at heart? Thus the apostle John wrote in 1 Jn. 3:15, “he who hates his brother is a murderer.” John recognizes that if you hate, you are still a murderer even if you don’t actually kill. History shows, by the way, that if average people think they can get away with murder, then they will murder.

Similarly, suppose a woman and man each married to someone else start flirting with and sexually fantasizing about each other. Suppose they even realize that the object of their lust feels similarly about them. If they don’t have sex, why not? Again, isn’t it self-interest? She might get pregnant, one or both of them might get a brand-spanking-new STD, or they might get caught and thus lose their reputations and families. Perhaps the man is afraid that her husband might kill him. And so on. But if he or she refrains from actually doing it either from lack of opportunity or from fear of consequences and not because they honor God or have determined to cherish their spouse, then their refraining doesn’t make them good. That’s why Jesus said that the one who lusts commits adultery in his heart (Mat. 5:28).

Taking these verses seriously, then, are there any people who live long enough not to end up, sooner or later, being adulterous murderers? I didn’t make it out of junior high without being an adulterous murderer. Kids hated me and I hated them.

Why does the Bible teach this? It is because evil is primarily a matter of the heart. We need to connect these dots for the non-Christians who are adulterous murderers in their hearts but still believe they are good people. If we do, they might recognize their sinful condition and cry out for the grace available through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.

Isaiah 64:6: “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.”

Amen.

Posted in Apologetics, Evangelism, Self-esteem | Tagged , , , , , | 26 Comments

Introducing a Woman You Can Trust

Posted on September 14, 2011 by clayjones

One of the things that concerns me today is that so many authors have earned various degrees, and garnered various accolades, and published many books, but, sadly, if you get to know their lives you find that they aren’t ones to imitate (it isn’t infrequent, as everyone knows, that some of these authors are caught in spectacular scandal). Over the years I’ve known many famous Christian authors who have published books who shouldn’t have. One author told me that he put a particular idea in a not self-published book about improving people’s lives (I’m being vague here) and his wife told him “But you don’t do that yourself.” To which he replied, “Yeah, but I should.”

Christians shouldn’t do that… but they do.

Frankly, if you can’t live a belief you consider correct, you shouldn’t teach it regardless of how well you write or speak. That’s why Paul puts so much emphasis on lifestyle when it comes to who should be an elder or deacon in a church. Also, in James 3:13 we read, “Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.” In other words, the wise person should be able to show it by his lifestyle. If he can’t live it, he doesn’t know what he is talking about on that area.

Those with correct beliefs will have correct lifestyles to match.

And that brings me to my wife.

Jean E. has started a blog and she knows what she is talking about because she doesn’t just hear the Word of God, she does it.

I should know because I started “going out” with Jean E. just 2 months after I turned 15. We married when I was 18 and—as those who know us will testify—we are happily married. I’ve learned many things from Jean E., especially about the Old Testament and how to write (I couldn’t teach the writing course I teach today if she hadn’t constantly edited my university papers by me chastening me regarding passive voice, strong verbs, brevity, clear transitions, etc.). Jean E. has gone through a lot of hardships, some of which she has written about—others she will write about later—and she has learned through continued faithfulness to God how to overcome hardship with grace and with an eye on Heaven!

So, if you’re looking for sage advice from a wise Christian woman who lives it, I encourage you to check out Jean E.’s blog at www.jeanejones.net!

Proverbs 31:29.

Amen.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Unsung Lessons from 9/11: “Moral Monsters” & Fear of Death

Posted on September 6, 2011 by clayjones

See my article on Biola’s website regarding the unsung lessons from September 11, 2001: all of us are born in a state of sin and that’s why all fear death (1 Cor. 15:56). Accepting these truths prepares us to receive the good news about Jesus Christ—we can be forgiven, inwardly changed, adopted into God’s family, and inherit eternal life.

http://now.biola.edu/news/article/2011/sep/02/911-enabled-moral-monsters-fear-mortality-unsung-l/

 

Posted in Why God Allows Evil | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

On Judging Men and Angels

Posted on August 9, 2011 by clayjones

In 1 Cor. 6:2-3 is an amazing truth: “Do you know not that we will judge the world…. Do you not know that we will judge angels?”

Christians will judge the world? Judge Angels?

That’s extraordinary!

But, why would humans in any sense be qualified to judge others—humans
or angels?

The answer is simple: those with the least amount of evidence of God’s goodness and power who, nonetheless, continue to honor Him are always in a position to judge those who had even more evidence but disobeyed.

Consider Jesus’ words in Luke 11:29-32:

This is a wicked generation. It asks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah. For as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so also will the Son of Man be to this generation. The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, and now one greater than Solomon is here. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here.1

See what I mean?

The Ninevites repented because some guy named Jonah happened to walk through their city warning them of coming destruction. Similarly, the Queen of the South traveled a great distance to meet a wise man named Solomon of whom she had only heard rumors. Thus, Jesus says that the Queen of the South and the Ninevites will rise up at the Judgment and condemn those who witnessed His miracles and yet rejected Him because they are without excuse.

Again, those with little evidence who still believe can rightfully condemn those who had more evidence but don’t believe.

It is the same with the fallen angels. Even though angels actually saw God, some rebelled, and so Christians who had much less evidence for God can rightfully condemn those who had much more evidence yet disobeyed.

And what is the complaint of today’s skeptic? Isn’t it, “God didn’t give us enough evidence!”? Well, those who obey God in this life, even though they are ridiculed for those beliefs (and many are even being beaten, tortured, and murdered for their belief), are in the rightful position to condemn those at the Judgment who said, “but we needed more evidence.”

In the meantime, the world has been given the sign of Jonah: Jesus was crucified by a crowd that always asked for more evidence, but then He was raised from the dead. His resurrection is the sign that He is who He said. So you, Christian, may find yourself standing before God at the Judgment and hear the skeptic complain that there wasn’t enough evidence and you can say, “I saw the same evidence you did and still believed and it turns out that, indeed, my beliefs were justified!”

“For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.” When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.” At that, Paul left the Council. A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others. (Acts 17:31-34)

Amen.

 

  1. See also Matt. 11:20-24. In that passage we find that those with less evidence who refused to believe will have it easier on the Day of Judgment than those who had more evidence but refused to believe. [↩]
Posted in Apologetics, Why God Allows Evil | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off

On Humiliating Satan

Posted on August 2, 2011 by clayjones

Since I teach on why God allows evil, I often talk about Job. I have learned that many Christians have missed a major lesson of that book, if not the major lesson. Although many rightly conclude from Job that we should be humble when it comes to why God allows this or that suffering, there is something else amazing found in the book’s beginning.

In the first chapter we learn that Job is the wealthiest man in the world, renowned, and that he worships God.

But then we are told of a great contest in Heaven.

One day the angels presented themselves before the Lord and Satan came along with them and the Lord asked Satan:

“Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” (Job 1:8-11)

Here Satan contends that Job only serves God because God has given Job everything he wanted and that If God didn’t give Job what he wanted then Job would rebel.

Well, the Lord tells Satan that Satan can destroy all the things Job enjoys. Soon disaster kills his family, marauders steal his possessions, Satan afflicts him with boils, and Job’s wife tells him to “curse God and die.”

And here’s the question I ask my students: “what was the only thing that Job had to do to humiliate Satan in front of God and all God’s servants?”

The answer is simple: the only thing Job had to do to humiliate Satan in front of God and all the beings of the heavenly realm was to continue to honor God. As long as Job honored God, he humiliated Satan.

Satan would be humiliated because it would not only prove him wrong but, even more importantly, it would prove that some beings will serve God even if their lives are miserable.

And this would justify God’s final judgment of Satan! After all, why did Satan rebel? Isn’t it because Satan thought he deserved more? The implication is, “If you gave me everything I had ever wanted, then I wouldn’t have rebelled either.” Isn’t it Satan’s underlying argument that no one will serve God if He deprives them of what they value? Satan certainly believed that was the case with Job.

So, like Job, when our life gets very hard, if we get fired, or our finances tank, or we get cancer, but we still honor God then we too humiliate Satan.

And, of course, all of us, unless we die first, will get life threatening news which can be our finest hour! What I mean is that our finest hour isn’t getting a promotion or sitting on the beach in Kauai; our finest hour is when we get life shattering news, and our family and friends and acquaintances and the Heavenly host are watching, and we continue to honor God anyway!

When we do this, when we honor God in hardship, then we too humiliate Satan.

Eph. 3:10: “His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.”

Amen.

Posted in Apologetics, Why God Allows Evil | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

God or “We Got Lucky”

Posted on July 25, 2011 by clayjones

So how did the universe, and all the complexity we find in living things, arise? There are only two explanations: God or luck. Now, if the Darwinists are correct, this luck is operated on by natural selection but don’t let that fool you: natural selection is still working upon lucky mutations. For the naturalist luck is still at the bottom of the origin of the universe, the origin of life, and the complexity found in living things. Naturalism is, at its core, based upon luck. 

I’m going to just pass on some quotes with little commentary.

Luck and the Origin of Life

Richard Dawkins: “We can accept a certain amount of luck in our explanations, but not too much…. We can allow ourselves the luxury of an extravagant theory [regarding the origin of life on our planet], provided that the odds of coincidence do not exceed 100 billion billion to one [10-20].”1

Dawkins:  “Brilliant physicist and cosmologist”2 Fred “Hoyle said that the probability of life originating on Earth is no greater than the chance that a hurricane, sweeping through a scrapyard, would have the luck to assemble a Boeing 747. Others have borrowed the metaphor to refer to the later evolution of complex living bodies, where it has a spurious plausibility.”3 Thus, we are just crazy-lucky that life began.

Luck and the Evolution of Complex Biological Systems

Richard Dawkins:

Evolution is very possibly not, in actual fact, always gradual. But it must be gradual when it is being used to explain the coming into existence of complicated, apparently designed objects, like eyes. For if it is not gradual in these cases, it ceases to have any explanatory power at all. Without gradualness in these cases, we are back to miracle, which is simply a synonym for the total absence of explanation. The reason eyes and wasp-pollinated orchids impress us so is that they are improbable. The odds against their spontaneously assembling by luck are odds too great to be borne in the real world. Gradual evolution by small steps, each step being lucky but not too lucky, is the solution to the riddle. But if it is not gradual, it is no solution to the riddle: it is just a restatement of the riddle.4

Notice here that even after life began it is still a matter of luck. Granted that for the Darwinist this luck is operated on by natural selection but the chance mutations themselves are still the result of luck. Consider one example of how lucky. Francis Crick won a Nobel Prize as the co-discoverer of the double helical nature of DNA (what follows is a little long but well worth it):

To produce this miracle of molecular construction [a polypeptide chain] all the cell need do is to string together the amino acids (which make up the polypeptide chain) in the correct order. This is a complicated biochemical process, a molecular assembly line, using instructions in the form of a nucleic acid tape (the so-called messenger RNA)…. Here we only need to ask, how many possible proteins are there? If a particular amino acid sequence was selected by chance, how rare an event would that be? This is an easy exercise in combinatorials. Suppose the chain is about two hundred amino acids long; this is, if anything rather less than the average length of the proteins of all types. Since we have just twenty possibilities at each place, the number of possibilities is twenty multiplied by itself some 200 times. This is conveniently written 20200 and is approximately equal to 10260, that is, a one followed by 260 zeros! This number is quite beyond our everyday comprehension. For comparison, consider the number of fundamental particles (atoms, speaking loosely) in the entire visible universe, not just our own galaxy with its 1011 stars, but in all the billions of galaxies, out to the limits of observable space. This number, which is estimated to be 1080, is quite paltry by comparison to 10260. Moreover, we have only considered a polypeptide chain of a rather modest length. Had we considered a longer one as well, the figure would have been even more immense.5

Of course, 10260 is really, seriously, unbelievably, crazy-lucky. And, again, this is just for one polypeptide chain “of a rather modest length”!

No wonder Crick wrote that “Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved.”

Francis Crick, of course, realized that 10260 was indeed way too lucky so with Leslie Orgel they came up with a new solution:

It now seems unlikely that extraterrestrial living organisms could have reached the earth either as spores driven by the radiation pressure from another star or as living organisms imbedded in a meteorite. As an alternative to these nineteenth-century mechanisms, we have considered Directed Panspermia, the theory that organisms were deliberately transmitted to the earth by intelligent beings on another planet.”6

In other words, Crick had argued that extraterrestrials designed life and sent it here.7 Of course, Darwinists believe that these extraterrestrials would have also evolved through natural selection working on luck so we are still back to luck. So, at the bottom of it all it comes down to two possible explanations for the Universe: it arose from God or we’re just lucky. Very, very, very, very, times a centilllion (that’s a 1 with 303 zeros after it) lucky.

Romans 1:19-20: “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”

Amen.

  1. Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design (New York, W. W. Norton, 1996), 139, 145-146. [↩]
  2. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2008), 142. [↩]
  3. Ibid., 138. Although Dawkins later said that Hoyle’s illustration was based on Hoyle having a ”misunderstanding,” (142) Dawkins makes this statement in the context of natural selection not the origin of first life. Of course Hoyle wasn’t trying to argue that the statistical probablily of first life arising was mathmatically calcuable to a 747 being assembled in a junk yard by a tornado but only that first life assembling by chance is extremely improbable and Dawkins doesn’t disagree. Rather, Dawkins, in The God Delusion, is arguing that God is even more improbable than that. [↩]
  4. Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life (New York, NY: Basic Books, 1995), 83-84. [↩]
  5. Francis Crick, Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981), 51-25. Emphasis his. [↩]
  6. F. H. Crick, L. E. Orgel, (1973). “Directed Panspermia,” Icarus 19: 341–348. [↩]
  7. Crick later regretted the ET explanation but that he would feel the need to resort to it in the first place is the point. [↩]
Posted in Apologetics, Intelligent Design | Tagged , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Women’s “Liberation” and Female Unhappiness

Posted on June 23, 2011 by clayjones

A major study has concluded that women have become increasingly unhappy.1

By many objective measures the lives of women in the United States have improved over the past 35 years, yet we show that measures of subjective well-being indicate that women’s happiness has declined both absolutely and relative to men. The paradox of women’s declining relative wellbeing is found across various datasets, measures of subjective well-being, and is pervasive across demographic groups and industrialized countries. Relative declines in female happiness have eroded a gender gap in happiness in which women in the 1970s typically reported higher subjective well-being than did men. These declines have continued and a new gender gap is emerging—one with higher subjective well-being for men.

But how, how could this be?

I’ll give you three reasons for now.

Abortion. The pro-choice movement says, “It’s not a baby, it’s a clump of cells” and, sadly, many millions of women who have aborted their babies are beginning to realize that was a colossal lie. What’s convincing them isn’t mysticism, nor misogynism, nor even religion, but science (okay, maybe a little religion because religion tells us it’s wrong to kill people—science doesn’t tell us that). As these women later have ultrasounds for wanted clumps of cells they confront the startling realization that it is and was a baby after all! But after 50 million USA abortions, many millions of women NOW live with the guilt of killing their baby.  

Let me add, though, that if you have had an abortion (or encouraged one), you can find complete forgiveness in Jesus.

The diminishment of motherhood. Many a woman’s libber has proclaimed that girls shouldn’t be satisfied with being a wife and mother. In fact, that’s beneath them. That’s giving into the Man who wants to keep them barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen. To reach their true potential they need to become the vice-president or even president (think of it!) of some company that makes or sells something. After all, they can still spend carefully parceled “quality time” with their children! Sadly, however, and contrary to many NOW proclamations, it has turned out that a lot of women actually like being stay-at-home moms and they resent being looked down upon.

Porn. The prevalence of ever more perverted pornography fosters female unhappiness. This is for three major reasons.

First, porn makes women less valuable to men, which alters the balance of power between the sexes. This is true because sex is a powerful motivator.2 Consider that not too many years ago if a man wanted to see a woman naked, he pretty much had to marry one. But now any man so disposed can see countless women naked on monitors, screens, or stages. Marriage is less needed by men and that’s bad for women who want to marry.     

Second, porn makes men want their wives or girlfriends to act and look like porn stars and “liberated” women hear and obey. Consider this month’s Cosmopolitan cover stories (this is gross but everyone who can read sees their titles at every supermarket checkout): “78 Ways to Turn Him On” is followed by “What Men Want Most at 9 p.m.,” then there’s the all-important, “Bump-Proof Your Bikini Line.” If these don’t work, it might be because you’re too normal so there’s the article, “The Weird Trait Guys Look For in a Date.” But if this cornucopia of collected kowtow craziness fails to land the guy of a woman’s dreams there’s the plan-B article entitled: “4 Fab New Vibrators.” Wow, do Cosmo editors think of everything or what?

Does this sound like Cosmo is helping free women of male domination?

And how impossible is it for a woman to forever look like an almost underage porn star?  No wonder anorexia and bulimia abound and cosmetic surgery is de rigueur.  

Third, all of this, of course, has led many women to believe that if they don’t give themselves sexually to a man before marriage, that he won’t ever marry her. That’s backward. No wonder boys are now slow to become men! They know they don’t have to have a responsible job to buy the cow since they get the milk for free. This is why many women who have sex “no strings attached” soon start smoking Virginia Slims and sporting bumper stickers that say “The more I get to know men, the more I like my dog.”

It strikes me as odd that many liberals who chatter about women’s rights ardently support what hurts women. Sadly, today’s “liberated” woman is in more bondage than before the women’s lib movement began.

Christianity is the true liberator of women because in Christ “there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”3

Amen.

  1. Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, “The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness,” http://bpp.wharton.upenn.edu/betseys/papers/Female_Happiness.pdf. Accessed 22 June 2011. [↩]
  2. I don’t know where I first read this. [↩]
  3. Gal. 3:28. [↩]
Posted in Psychology, Sex, Uncategorized, Women | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Two Diminished Doctrines = Many Puny Christians

Posted on June 16, 2011 by clayjones

Sound the alarm and bar the door! We’ve been robbed! Two doctrinal jewels are missing: human depravity and the Christian’s glorification.

But I wonder how many Christians consider them jewels? After all, who likes to talk about the depths of human sinfulness (“Yes, I know we’re all sinners, blah-blah-blah”)? And eternity sounds tedious (we’re not going to be sporting flightless wings and playing harps, by the way).

Well, as many of you know, I’ve been studying and teaching on why God allows evil for many years and long ago I realized that the absence, or at least diminishment, of these two doctrines is the primary, and I do mean primary, reason that many Christians say we can’t know why God allows evil.

But there’s more.

A weak, beggarly understanding of these two doctrines is the chief reason that many a Christian’s life is so lack-luster. So dim. So puny, so paltry, so pantywaist, that a one-legged, 97 pound weakling could kick the stuffing out of it.

But seriously, to the extent that Christians don’t understand the depth of sin or the significance of our glorious eternal inheritance, they are spiritually hobbled.

Indeed, D. Martyn Loyd-Jones, the famous expositor of Westminster Chapel, wrote, “Most of our troubles are due to the fact that we are guilty of a double failure; we fail on the one hand to realize the depth of sin, and on the other hand we fail to realize the greatness and the height and the glory of our salvation.”

Loyd-Jones is right.

So today I’m adding to the Resources section of this blog an article I presented at the 2009 annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society that was entitled “We Don’t Take Human Evil Seriously so We Don’t Understand Why We Suffer.” In it I examine the theology, examples (warning: there is some unsettling information in this section), studies, reflections of researchers and victims, and what the Scripture says about human goodness and evil. I encourage you to read it. I end it with twelve ways a deeper understanding of human sinfulness benefits the Christian.

As for the glories of Heaven, I’m also adding to the Resources page an in-progress chapter I’m writing entitled “Reigning with Christ.” By the way, when I teach on Why God Allows Evil at Biola, I end the course talking about the glories that await us in Heaven. This topic isn’t given the time it needs in most works on why God allows evil and that’s too bad. C. S. Lewis was right that “Scripture and tradition habitually put the joys of Heaven into the scale against the sufferings of earth, and no solution of the problem of pain that does not do so can be called a Christian one.”

I discuss both of these in an interview with Brian Auten of Apologetics 315.

Of course, much more needs to be said.

2 Corinthians 4:17-18:  “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

Amen.

Posted in Apologetics, Why God Allows Evil | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment