I’ve mentioned Stephen Prothero’s revolutionary book, God is Not One, in this blog before. I think his writings are worth noting, especially with the hopes that he could be signaling a change in the ways our culture discusses different religious views. At the beginning of a new year, it may be worth praying that a new cultural trend will accompany the new calendar.
I’ll be presenting a number of seminars in the next few days about sharing the gospel. One seminar seeks insight about the question, “Are people really lost without Christ?” Another seminar tries to give an overview of the entire Bible’s missional message. I promised people I would post my suggestions for further study on these topics. I could have come up with a much longer list but I wanted to keep it manageable and current. So here’s what I came up with:
Our family concludes our Thanksgiving meal every year by sharing what we’re thankful for. I look forward to that moment all year long. We relive great moments, echo our notes of thanks, and nod our heads in agreement. And we smile.
I recently heard a sermon that missed the gospel – twice. I’m still intrigued by the combination.
Early on, the preacher pointed to Jesus’ baptism and observed that the Father spoke these powerful words to the Son, “You are my son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” He then applied the text to his hearers. “We all need to hear those same words spoken by the Father to us. We, too, are his beloved. With us, too, He is well pleased.”
I have long been enamored by C.S. Lewis’ discussion of joy, his technical term for that longing we feel for something more than this life can deliver. In his spiritual autobiography, Surprised by Joy, he says it’s the theme of his entire life. In his classic essay, The Weight of Glory, he describes this “lifelong nostalgia” as a “longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside” and concludes that it is “no mere neurotic fancy, but the truest index of our real situation.”
I recently read Eric Metaxas’ biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and marveled at how Nazi Germany could have gotten so bad. And it was considered normal. A few days later I went to the Newseum in downtown Washington, DC and saw films of our country during the 1960s’ civil rights’ movement activities. I wondered how we go to the point where white people turned hoses, guns, and hate on black people. And how it was considered normal.
Thoughtful Christians often find themselves confused by mixed signals. A church or organization or any structure that involves a group of people may say they believe one thing but, in practice, they reveal something rather different. It’s an easy trap to fall into, especially if you value mission or doctrinal statements. The problem occurs when you fail to evaluate your actions through the grid of your stated beliefs or priorities.
I just recently reread parts of Tim Keller’s The Reason for God. If you haven’t read it yet, I urge you to do so. I think it may be the most important evangelistic work to come along since C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity. In fact, Keller has said in a few interviews, that his hope was that this book could serve as a Mere Christianity for the twenty-first century. I think it certainly could. The book showcases Keller’s gift for addressing believers and non-believers in equally meaningful and engaging ways.
Here is a third installment in my discussion of Robert Putnam and David Campbell’s American Grace. The first two blogs in this series were posted on August 8th and 22nd. This book, based on a remarkably extensive study of Americans’ views about religion, deserves careful consideration by Christians concerned with spreading the gospel in a polarized and pluralistic world such as ours.