THEME: The resurrection of Jesus
is the one thing that distinguishes Christianity as truth and others as mere
religion. It is the foundation of our faith.
QUESTIONS:
Why is the belief in bodily resurrection important to Christianity?
How did some people try to explain away resurrection?
Why is resurrection significant to our faith?
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THEME: There is an imminent danger
of legalized polgamy in Canada and in the US.
What is the state of polygamy in the US?
·
HBO TV series, “Big Love described
as a modern-day Utah polygamist with his three wives, seven children. HBO
pledges to explore “the evolving institution of marriage” but is a direct
attack on marriage. It exploits the American public’s confusion over the
institution of marriage.
·
Attorneys general in Utah
and Arizona estimate that as many as 20,000 to 40,000 people in the United
States currently engage in polygamous relationships—perhaps as many as 100,000
or more.
·
There is a movement in Utah
to legalize polygamy. Some use the existence of wife abuse among polygamists as
a rationale for legalizing the relationships.
·
The legalization of
homosexual marriage is a step leading to legalization of polygamy. If marriage
can be redefined as anything other than the relationship between one man and
one woman, it can mean virtually anything.
How did the Canadian group argue for polygamy?
·
After legalizing same-sex
marriage, the Canadian Liberal Party commissioned a $150,000 study. Those
conducting the study came back with a startling recommendation—that Canada
should repeal all laws banning polygamy.
·
The authors of the study
also argue that Canada’s constitutional guarantee of religious freedom should
protect polygamists who claim participation in plural marriages as a tenet of
their faith.
How did homosexual marriage lead to polygamy?
·
If every sexual orientation
has a right to construct its own form of marriage, then more changes are surely
due. For what gay marriage is to homosexuality, group marriage is to
bisexuality.
·
The Utah chapter of the
ACLU argues that any personal relationship between consenting adults should be
protected by the Constitution.
·
If the government converts
marriage to merely the placing of a license on consenting adults that are in a
committed relationship, or who love each other, then there is no logical line
that can be drawn between gay marriage and polygamy. Gay marriage clearly opens
the door to polygamy.
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THEME: There is a the persistent conflict between Biblical and postmodern secular worldviews. The conflict covers all the basic tenets of Christian belief.
What is the most important battle between the two worldviews?
· As Christians, we are unavoidably engaged in a great battle of worldviews—a conflict over the most basic issues of truth and meaning. The most important battle is in the source of truth and its authority.
· Christians accept the the Bible is a self-revelation of God and is the source of truth and authority defining our whole worldview. The Bible claims to present absolute and non-negotiable truth that effectively trumps all other authorities.
· The Bible sets down a hermeneutic of submission as God demands obedience from His people—nothing less.
· Postmodern secularism denies God and engages in what we might call ‘defining divinity down.’ In an intellectual context of personal autonomy and individual self-expression, they may use the Bible as a guide, but the guide is open to constant re-interpretation.
· The postmodernist demands a hermeneutic of suspicion, demanding that the text meet his expectations. One of the most cherished maxims of the postmodern mind is the so-called “death of the author.” The reader, not the author, of a text is the ruling authority. Put simply, the postmodernist believes that the text means what the reader says it means, not what the author intended.
What is the Biblical claim for truth in Genesis?
· The Bible begins with a straight-forward declaration of divine creation, complete with a divine design for every aspect of the created order.
· Human beings are made in the image of God, and thus uniquely gifted and accountable as moral and spiritual creatures.
· Human beings are made male and female to the glory of the Creator. This is no vision of gender differences as mere social construction.
· Marriage immediately follows as the divinely—designed institution for human ordering, reproduction, sexuality, and romantic fulfillment. Marriage—the union of one man and one woman—is presented as an objective reality constituted as a moral covenant with legal and moral boundaries, not as a contract to be made, remade, or unmade at will.
· Humans are given responsibility as both stewards and rulers of the earth, ordered to subdue the earth to the Creator’s glory.
· To the postmodern mind, Genesis is a “totalizing meta-narrative of hegemonistic authoritarianism.” In other words, it tells us in no uncertain terms that God is God and we are not, even as it reveals that humanity fulfills a special purpose for God’s glory.
What other teachings in the Bible are criticized by postmodernists?
· Sin: In Genesis, human beings are clearly responsible for their sin. In postmodernism, sin has been banished from our moral vocabulary.
· Law: God’s moral law is the one and only standard. In postmodern ethics, moral relativism rules the field. Laws are seen as socially constructed and needlessly oppressive instruments of subjugation. In many law schools, a movement known as “critical legal theory” claims that laws generally reveal hidden claims of manipulative power that should be de-constructed for the betterment of all humankind. Thus, consistent with the postmodernist’s complete embrace of subjectivity, laws exist to be endlessly renegotiated and reinterpreted.
· Israel as chosen people: God elects Israel as His chosen people through which the whole world is blessed. Postmodernism charges the Biblical view as ethnocentrism and accuses Israel as waging a holy war against pagan nations.
· Other conflicts: claims of miracles and supernatural occurrences.
What is the proper Christian attitude toward this conflict?
· Understand that the conflict has been in existence for a long time: A “deep and radical antagonism” separates the Bible and our postmodern culture. But then, since the Fall that antagonism has always existed, separating obedience to God’s truth from the demand for human autonomy.
· Do not underestimate the intensity of the conflict: Christians tend to distance ourselves from the reality that the Bible sounds so exceedingly strange to modern and postmodern ears. We underestimate the distance of the divide between biblical Christianity and secular worldviews.
· Seek God’s grace and help when encountering problems (either in understanding or in argument): That radical antagonism isn’t overcome by force of argument and persuasion alone, but by grace.
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THEME: The book Total Truth, subtitled “Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity,” written by Nancy Pearcey is a great book encouraging the development a comprehensive Christian worldview to counter contemporary secular culture. The book is a masterpiece of cultural analysis and intellectual engagement, provides virtually an entire education in Christian worldview.
The author was a student of Francis Schaeffer. What key insight of Schaeffer motivates the author?
· Francis Schaeffer is one of the twentieth century’s most significant apologists. He helped an entire generation of struggling young evangelicals find their way into biblical Christianity.
· One of Schaeffer’s key insights was the split in the modern mind that separated “religious” truth from all other truth. This “two-story” division of truth into secular and sacred spheres ultimately undermines the Christian truth claim and leaves believers with nothing more than a claim to “spirituality” and “meaningful experiences” rather than objective truth and biblical authority.
· “Once we discover that the Christian worldview is really true, then living it out means offering up to God all our powers—practical, intellectual, emotional, artistic—to live for Him in every area of life. The only expression such faith can take is one that captures our entire being and redirects our every thought. The notion of a secular/sacred split becomes unthinkable. Biblical truth takes hold of our inner being, and we recognize that it is not only a message of salvation but also the truth about all reality. God’s word becomes a light to all our paths, providing the foundational principles for bringing every part of our lives under the Lordship of Christ, to glorify Him and cultivate His creation.”
· Even some ignorant Christians were insinuating that Christianity is a matter of feeling and emotion, while science is a matter of fact and objective truth.
What is the author’s opinion about our young people?
· Our youth have absorbed their views on just about everything else by osmosis from the surrounding culture.
· Too many believers, Pearcey insists, “have absorbed the fact/value, public/private dichotomy, restricting their faith to the religious sphere while adopting whatever views are current in their professional or social circles.”
· As Pearcey insists, “Training young people to develop a Christian mind is no longer an option; it is part of their necessary survival equipment.”
In what areas should we train our young people?
· The author emphasizes training in three great themes: Creation, Fall, and Redemption. Every worldview, she explains, must provide a theory of how the world came to be, explain what has gone wrong with humanity, and point to some hope of redemption. By using such a theological grid, Pearcey suggests that “we can identify nonbiblical worldviews and then analyze where they go wrong.”
· In any worldview, the concept of Creation is foundational: As the first principle, it shapes everything that follows. Critics of Christianity know that it stands or falls with its teaching on ultimate origins. In other words, we cannot create a synthesis of biblical truth and evolutionary theory. This is absolutely correct and urgently important—for to surrender the Bible’s truth claims on the origin of the universe is eventually to abdicate the totality of the Christian truth claim.
· As Pearcey explains, “To be loyal to the great claims of our faith, we can no longer acquiesce in letting Christianity be shunted aside to the value sphere. We must throw off metaphysical timidity, be convinced that we have a winning case, and take the offensive. Armed with prayer and spiritual power, we need to ask God to show us where the battle is being fought today, and enlist under the Lordship and leadership of Christ.”
Why are evangelicals so vulnerable to intellectual timidity?How can we help?
· Evangelicals were simply retreating into an upper story faith where Christianity was reduced to an experience. Furthermore, many evangelicals bought into various philosophical movements and are simply blinded to their own intellectual, moral, and spiritual compromises by the pervasive seduction of contemporary culture .
· Serious Christians ought to be developing an entire library of books intended to apply the Christian worldview to every area of life, thought, study, and culture.
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