Sermon Illustrations on Convictions — page 2

Our Political and Religious Beliefs Should Not Be Separate

Acts 5:29

In a recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle about voters in North Carolina, Alexandria Pitts, a 19-year-old elementary education major at a major university offered her opinion. She said, “My religion is Christian, but I’m still going to vote for Obama. My politics and religious beliefs are separate.”

As a Christian, Ms. Pitts is certainly free to vote for either candidate -- Republican or Democrat. But it’s troubling to hear her state that her “politics and religious beliefs are separate.”

Too many Christians today live compartmentalized lives. They have religious beliefs -- but those beliefs are kept separate from what we decide about money, moral choices, relationships and ethical decisions. Too many Christians believe religious beliefs are private, with little impact on public behavior.

A few years ago, a friend of mine refused to participate in an activity in his workplace. When asked by his boss for a reason, he replied, “It violates my Christian convictions.” His boss told him, “That’s your problem. You are letting your religion affect your life.” Wow! Somehow I thought it was supposed to work that way.

Today, if you base your political decisions (or any other aspect of your life) on your religious convictions, you are stigmatized. You are called a legalist or a fundamentalist. You are out of touch with reality. You are inflexible, or worse, intolerant. There is little respect, if any, for the person who tries to base life on principles drawn from religious convictions.

My hope is you will draw a different conclusion than Ms. Pitts. My hope is you will take seriously your responsibility to understand Christian convictions and base your decisions -- political or personal -- on them. We live in an unprecedented time when politicians and political parties are staking out positions with clear moral dimension. It is our responsibility to understand the choices we face and base our decisions on convictional Christian thinking.

Here I Stand

Acts 26:22

In 1521 young Martin Luther was called before Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms (“diet” meaning a formal meeting, not a weight-loss plan, and Worms being a city south of Frankfurt). Luther thought he would have a chance to defend his ideas. Charles would only accept an ironclad recantation. What Charles got was Luther’s defiant “Here I Stand” speech - or did he?

Dr. Scott H. Hendrix, author of Luther and the Papacy: Stages in a Reformation Conflict (Fortress, 1981), investigated this question for Christian History issue 34: Luther’s Early Years. Hendrix notes that Luther caused such a sensation that all sorts of tales about him circulated, sometimes traveling faster than reliable facts. The speech story apparently received some quick touch-up treatment. Hendrix writes:

In April 1521, Luther appeared before Emperor Chrales V to defend what he had taught and written. At the end of his speech, the story goes, he spoke the famous words, “Here I stand; I can do no other. God help me.”

The earliest printed version of Luther’s address added these words, which were not recorded on the spot. It’s possible they are genuine, but for almost a half century now, most scholars have believed they were probably not spoken by Luther.

A second misunderstanding arises when the words “Here I stand” are quoted as evidence of Luther’s modern stand against the medieval powers of church and empire. Luther’s speech was not a defiant, solitary protest, but a calm, reasoned account of why he had written the books piled on the table before him and why he could not recant their content.

Luther asserted that his conscience was captive to the Word of God and that he could not go against conscience. This was not, however, a modern plea for the supremacy of the individual conscience or for religious freedom. Though already excommunicated by Rome, Luther saw himself as a sworn teacher of Scripture who must advocate the right of all Christians to hear and live by the gospel.

Without “Here I stand,” is Luther’s shining moment forever dulled, like the March on Washington without “I have a dream” or the Gettysburg Address without “Four score and seven years”? Hardly. In his seminal Luther: Man Between God and the Devil (English edition Yale, 1989), Reformation scholar Heiko Oberman renders Luther’s speech like this:

Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Holy Scriptures or by evident reason - for I can believe neither pope nor councils alone, as it is clear that they have erred repeatedly and contradicted themselves - I consider myself convicted by the testimony of Holy Scripture, which is my basis; my conscience is captive to the Word of God. Thus I cannot and will not recant, because acting against one’s conscience is neither safe nor sound. God help me. Amen.

Whoever first printed that speech and added the famous phrase apparently wanted very much to stand by it. Luther could hardly have minded.

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Original article title is "What Luther Said," Christian History magazine #34, 2002.

Of Babies and Beans? A Frightening Denial of Human Dignity

Adam Gopnik is a gifted essayist and writer whose contributions, often published in The New Yorker, are almost always thoughtful and interesting. Nevertheless, one of his most recent writings is deeply disturbing, and at the deepest level.

Reflecting on the debate between Vice President Joseph Biden and Rep. Paul Ryan, Gopnik registered alarm at “something genuinely disturbing and scary” that had been said by Paul Ryan. Gopnik first complained that Biden and Ryan should not have even been asked about the role their Roman Catholic faith plays in their thinking, specifically on the issue of abortion.

Gopnik then wrote:

“Paul Ryan did not say, as John Kennedy had said before him, that faith was faith and public service, public service, each to be honored and kept separate from the other. No, he said instead ‘I don’t see how a person can separate their public life from their private life or from their faith. Our faith informs us in everything we do.’ That’s a shocking answer — a mullah’s answer, what those scary Iranian “Ayatollahs” he kept referring to when talking about Iran would say as well. Ryan was rejecting secularism itself, casually insisting, as the Roman Catholic Andrew Sullivan put it, that ‘the usual necessary distinction between politics and religion, between state and church, cannot and should not exist.’”

Gopnik accuses Paul Ryan of reasoning like a mullah and rejecting any distinction between church and state. Ryan did no such thing, of course. Instead, Ryan stated the obvious — “Our faith informs us in everything we do.” Any faith of substance will inform every dimension of our lives. It is hard to imagine that Adam Gopnik would have complained or even taken offense if a similar statement had been made, for example, by the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., concerning his advocacy for civil rights.

Our total worldview inevitably “informs us in everything we do.” Paul Ryan was simply responding with honesty, and he did not call for a theocracy. Interestingly, Joseph Biden, though a champion of a woman’s right to choose, has repeatedly claimed the influence of his Roman Catholic faith in other arenas of public policy, especially economics. This has not elicited similar cries from liberals, accusing Biden of attempting to forge a theocracy.

Gopnik attempted to make his position clear, arguing that religious beliefs “should not inform us in everything we do, or there would be no end to the religious warfare that our tolerant founders feared.” Mr. Gopnik would no doubt be surprised to discover that many of the founders were not so tolerant, in his sense, as he believes. A good many argued for the absolute necessity of theism as a foundation for morality and civil society. In any event, does he really believe that a candidate’s most deeply held convictions should have no influence in his or her thinking on the most serious of issues? That is not only impossible; it is absurd.

As off-base as his complaint on this issue is, however, it pales in contrast to the argument Gopnik then turned to make. He referred to the fact that Ryan defended the right to life of the unborn, and that Ryan and his wife had named their unborn first child “Bean” as an affectionate reference to the shape on the ultrasound image. Gopnik asserted that “a bean is exactly what the photograph shows — a seed, a potential, a thing that might yet grow into something greater, just as a seed has the potential to become a tree. A bean is not a baby.”

There is no mistaking Gopnik’s claim — that the image of the unborn Ryan child revealed only a bean, and not a baby.

Gopnik then wrote:

“The fundamental condition of life is that it develops, making it tricky sometimes to say when it’s fully grown and when it isn’t, but always easy to say that there is a difference and that that difference is, well, human life itself. It is this double knowledge that impacts any grownup thinking about abortion: that it isn’t life that’s sacred — the world is full of life, much of which Paul Ryan wants to cut down and exploit and eat done medium rare. It is conscious, thinking life that counts, and where and exactly how it begins (and ends) is so complex a judgment that wise men and women, including some on the Supreme Court, have decided that it is best left, at least at its moments of maximum ambiguity, to the individual conscience (and the individual conscience’s doctor).”

Chillingly, Gopnik limits human dignity to “conscious, thinking life.” This is the life “that counts,” he claimed.

Clearly, Gopnik agrees with those who restrict human dignity to persons who achieve “conscious, thinking life,” and apparently only for so long as they maintain that state of consciousness and thinking ability. This is the horrifying logic of the German doctors of the Weimar Republic who argued that certain human beings were not fully deserving of life — deemed “life unworthy of life.” They argued that certain abilities or characteristics must be acquired and maintained in order for life to be “worthy of life.”

I am quite certain that Adam Gopnik, who writes so movingly of his love of fatherhood, did not mean to associate with the full impact of such an argument, but his own assertions lead to the very same conclusion. We must note that Gopnik goes so far as to cast doubt, not only on when “conscious, thinking life” begins, but where it ends. Did the readers of The New Yorker even notice?

This is the logic of the Culture of Death, and it is an assault upon the dignity and worth of every human being. There was indeed “something genuinely disturbing and scary” said with reference to the Vice Presidential Debate, but it wasn’t said by Paul Ryan. It was written by Adam Gopnik.

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Adam Gopnik, “Of Babies and Beans: Paul Ryan on Abortion,” The New Yorker, Friday, October 12, 2012. [Warning: The article includes a vulgarism.] http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/10/of-babies-and-beans-paul-ryan-on-abortion.html

Learning From Young Atheists: What Turned Them Off To Christianity [2 Articles]

Luke 6:40

Have you ever asked a young atheist why he or she doesn’t believe? Well, one researcher did. And the answers may surprise you.

It’s something most Christian parents worry about: You send your kids off to college and when they come back, you find they’ve lost their faith. The prospect of this happening is why many parents nudge their kids towards Christian colleges, or at least schools with a strong Christian presence on campus.

But in many ways, the damage has been done long before our children set foot on campus.

That’s the message from a recent article in the Atlantic Monthly.

My friend Larry Taunton of the Fixed Point Foundation set out to find out why so many young Christians lose their faith in college. He did this by employing a method I don’t recall being used before: He asked them.

The Fixed Point Foundation asked members of the Secular Students Associations on campuses around the nation to tell them about their “journey to unbelief.” Taunton was not only surprised by the level of response but, more importantly, about the stories he and his colleagues heard.

Instead of would-be Richard Dawkins’, the typical respondent was more like Phil, a student Taunton interviewed. Phil had grown up in church; he had even been the president of his youth group. What drove Phil away wasn’t the lure of secular materialism or even Christian moral teaching. And he was specifically upset when his church changed youth pastors.

Whereas his old youth pastor “knew the Bible” and made Phil “feel smart” about his faith even when he didn’t have all the answers, the new youth pastor taught less and played more.

Phil’s loss of faith coincided with his church’s attempt to ingratiate itself to him instead of challenging him. According to Taunton, Phil’s story “was on the whole typical of the stories we would hear from students across the country.”

These kids had attended church but “the mission and message of their churches was vague,” and manifested itself in offering “superficial answers to life’s difficult questions.” The ministers they respected were those “who took the Bible seriously,” not those who sought to entertain them or be their “buddy.”

Taunton also learned that, for many kids, their journey to unbelief was an emotional, not just an intellectual one.

Taunton’s findings are counter-intuitive. Much of what passes for youth ministry these days is driven by a morbid fear of boring our young charges. As a result, a lot of time is spent trying to devise ways to entertain them.

The rest of the time is spent worrying about whether the Christian message will turn kids off. But as Taunton found, young people, like the not-so-young, respect people with conviction — provided they know what they’re talking about.

Taunton talks about his experiences with the late Christopher Hitchens, who, in their debates, refrained from attacking him. When asked why, Hitchens replied, “Because you believe it.”

I don’t know what that says about Hitchens’ other Christian debate partners, but it is a potent reminder that playing down the truth claims of the Christian faith doesn’t work. People don’t believe those they don’t respect.

Here’s something that one of the students told Larry Taunton; he said, “Christianity is something that if you really believed it, it would change your life and you would want to change [the lives] of others. I haven’t seen too much of that.”

Folks, that’s pretty sobering. This puts the ball in our court. Are we living lives that show our children that we actually believe what we say we believe? And here’s another question — do we actually believe it?

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Article from Baptist Press, August 7, 2013

"What Young Atheists Can Teach Us" by Rob Phillips

Larry Alex Taunton directs the Fixed Point Foundation, which seeks innovative ways to defend and proclaim the Gospel.

Recently, his organization reached out to college-age atheists nationwide in a unique campaign. As Taunton contacted leaders of Secular Student Alliances and Freethought Societies, he had one simple request: Tell us your journey to unbelief.

Taunton did not dispute their stories or debate the merits of their views. He just listened. Many stepped forward -- some reluctantly -- but ultimately Taunton found patterns emerging from the young atheists’ stories, and he summarized them in a recent article in The Atlantic.

Their stories have common threads:

• The young atheists had attended church. Most participants didn’t begin with a naturalistic worldview but chose atheism as a reaction to Christianity, which they found lifeless, hypocritical or uncompelling for a variety of reasons.

• Their churches promoted vague missions and messages. The students heard plenty of messages on social justice, community involvement and good deeds, but they failed to see a connection between these messages, Jesus and the Bible. They knew intuitively that the church exists for more than social campaigns; it exists to proclaim the teachings of Jesus and His relevance to a sinful and fallen world.

• Their churches fumbled the big questions. When asked what they found unconvincing about the Christian faith, the students mentioned a lack of satisfying answers to such issues as evolution vs. creation, sexuality, Jesus as the only way, and the reliability of the Bible. Not only was the church often ill-equipped to delve into these issues; it lacked the stomach to tackle them at all.

• They respect ministers who take the Bible seriously. The young atheists expressed grudging admiration for pastors and other Christians who embrace biblical teaching and are not ashamed to say so.

As atheist illusionist and comedian Penn Jillette famously remarked, “I don’t respect people who don’t proselytize.... If you believe that there’s a heaven and hell ... and you think that it’s not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward ... how much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?”

• Ages 14-17 are key. While some participants said they adopted atheism as early as eight years of age or as late as college, most admitted embracing unbelief in high school.

• Emotions run deep. Most students said they lost their Christianity for purely rational reasons. However, the more they talked, the more they described a deeply emotional journey from belief to atheism. One young woman said she became an atheist after her father died -- not because she blamed God for his death but because he was abusive and she did not want to think her father was still alive somewhere.

• Online is everything. When asked about the key influences in their conversion to atheism, not a single participant mentioned the “New Atheists” like Christopher Hitchens, or their books or seminars. Rather, they mentioned YouTube or website forums.

Getting real

There’s much we can do to engage our young atheist friends by listening to them, helping them wrestle with tough questions and providing a connection between Christ and a broken world. But we also must address the doubts and fears of young people in our own churches.

If Christianity is not objectively true, rationally compelling and personally engaging, then why should anyone -- young or old -- want to embrace it?

Scottish philosopher and skeptic David Hume once was spotted in a crowd listening to the preaching of George Whitefield, the noted evangelist of the First Great Awakening.

Someone said to Hume, “I thought you didn’t believe in the Gospel.”

“I do not,” Hume replied. Then, nodding toward Whitefield, he added, “But he does.”

Christians Decline While 'Nones' Increase

The number of Christians in America has dropped nearly 8 percentage points since 2007 while the number of religiously unaffiliated adults has increased by nearly 7 percentage points during the same period.

That’s the finding of the Pew Research Center’s 200-page study of “America’s Changing Religious Landscape” released today (May 12). The survey of some 35,000 adults drew a variety of reactions from Southern Baptist leaders.

“The results of the survey communicate growing evidence that the greatest need in America is a spiritual awakening,” Southern Baptist Convention President Ronnie Floyd told Baptist Press in written comments. “The time is now and the hour is urgent; our churches in this nation must come together in clear agreement, visible union and extraordinary prayer for the next Great Awakening and to reach America and the World for Christ.

“Simultaneously, we need to rise with the same urgency, having a vision to reach our communities, towns and cities for Christ, returning to the priority of evangelizing, disciple-making and planting Gospel churches exponentially,” said Floyd, pastor of Cross Church in northwest Arkansas.

Pew’s survey -- conducted by phone June 4-Sept. 30, 2014, in Spanish and English -- estimated a net decline of between 2.8 to 7.8 million Christians since a comparable survey in 2007. That translates to a drop from 78.4 percent of the U.S. population to 70.6 percent.

Most of the decline occurred among mainline Protestants and Roman Catholics, with each decreasing by approximately 3 percent as a portion of the population since 2007. For every convert to Catholicism in America, there are six former Catholics, according to the report.

Historically black Protestant denominations held steady between 2007 and 2014, and evangelicals decreased 0.9 percent as a portion of the population while increasing by some 2 million in terms of raw numbers.

“Generational replacement” as Americans from predominantly Christian generations died and “religious switching” were two primary causes of the decline among Christians, the survey found. A full 42 percent of Americans have a different religion than they did in childhood -- a percentage that accounts for switches between evangelical, mainline and historically black Protestantism.

Non-Christian religions have increased by 1.2 percentage points since 2007 to encompass 5.9 percent of American adults.

But the increase of the religiously unaffiliated population -- dubbed the “nones” -- was the “most dramatic” change, a Pew senior adviser told journalists during a May 12 conference call.

“This trend towards the unaffiliated has occurred among all age groups to some extent and among all the major racial and ethnic communities as well,” said John Green, a Pew senior advisor and distinguished professor of political science at the University of Akron. “In this regard, of particular note is a sharp increase in the percentage of Americans who self-identify as atheists and agnostics.”

While 25 percent of the nones claimed to be atheists or agnostics in 2007, 31 percent claimed those designations in 2014. Over the same period, the percentage of Protestants who identify with Baptist denominations dropped from 41 percent to 36 percent.

“This research reveals that which many of us have been suspecting for quite some time,” said Frank S. Page, president and CEO of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee. “We have seen the ever-increasing secularization of our culture and know that this is affecting those who call themselves Christians.

“Pastors and evangelists for years have said that we are always only one generation away from becoming a pagan culture,” Page told BP in written comments. “The importance of personal evangelism cannot be overstated. Our world needs Christ, and He has commissioned us to be the sharers of the Gospel. Let us recommit to telling those in our sphere of influence about the good news of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Ed Stetzer, president of LifeWay Research, underscored the survey’s finding that evangelicals now constitute a majority (55%) of American Protestants. He highlighted the steadiness of “convictional Christianity” amid the decline of liberal Protestantism.

“Christianity isn’t dying and no research says it is,” Stetzer wrote in a blog post. “The statistics about Christians in America are simply starting to show a clearer picture of what American Christianity is becoming -- less nominal, more defined, and more outside of the mainstream of American culture.

“For example, the cultural cost of calling yourself ‘Christian’ is starting to outweigh the cultural benefit, so those who do not identify as a ‘Christian’ according to their convictions are starting to identify as ‘nones’ because it’s more culturally savvy,” Stetzer wrote. “Because of this, the statistics show (on the surface) that Christianity in America is experiencing a sharp decline. However, that’s the path of those who don’t read beyond the surface. If there remains a relatively stable church-engaged, convictional minority, and there is a big movement on self-identification, that means that the middle is going away.”

Russell Moore, president of Southern Baptists’ Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said he sees hopeful signs amid Pew’s report.

“This study makes it clear ... that people who don’t want Christianity don’t want the almost-Christianity offered to them by traditions that jettison the historic teachings of the church as soon as they become unfashionable,” Moore said according to an ERLC news release.

“The churches that are thriving are the vibrant, countercultural congregations that aren’t afraid to not be seen as normal to the surrounding culture. This report actually leaves me hopeful. The Bible Belt may fall. So be it. Christianity emerged from a Roman Empire hostile to the core to the idea of a crucified and resurrected Messiah. We’ve been on the wrong side of history since Rome, and it was enough to turn the world upside down,” Moore said.