The headline read: Elisabeth Hasselbeck returns to 'The View' and debates abortion with Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar. Admittedly I don’t know anything about these ladies.  The name Whoopi Goldberg is familiar, and I have heard about this show called “The View”.  My comments therefore are not grounded in a lot of knowledge or backstory.  The article showed up in my Google news feed and it was the title that grabbed my attention.  I can’t write about anything beyond what is in the article.

Apparently, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, was a previous co-host and returned to the Show and the topic of the Kansas’ debate on whether to keep pro abortion rights in light of the recent dismantling of the Roe vs Wade decision by the US Supreme Court.

If the reporting is accurate, the author, Suzy Byrne, wrote: “Using religion in her response, Goldberg said, "As you know, God doesn't make mistakes. God made us smart enough to know when it wasn't going to work for us. That's the beauty of giving us freedom of choice."”

I have no desire to defame Hasselbeck.  In fact, I admire her courage and I applaud her use of adoption as an alternative to abortion.  My focus is on the phrase, “Using religion in her response.” My point is that although religion could be a response to the abortion debate, it is not the best nor is it the necessary response.  Prolife is not simply a religious conviction.

Scott Klusendorf writes, “The abortion controversy is not a debate between those who are pro-choice and those who are anti-choice. It’s not about privacy. It’s not about trusting women to decide. It’s not about forcing one’s morality. It’s about one question that trumps all others.”[1]

The question is, Is the unborn a human being or not?  That is not a religious question.  At its core that is a scientific question. I don’t think there is any reason to debate the issue with someone who admits the unborn to be human and is willing to take its life.  One would hope that this approach is fundamentally wrong on any level. So the real debate between so-called pro-choice and so-called pro-life is WHAT IS THE UNBORN?

Klussendorf has written a very compelling book entitled The Case for Life.  I think someone seriously committed to do what is morally right ought to read his book. It argues extensively, this point:

“The science of embryology is clear. From the earliest stages of development, the unborn are distinct, living, and whole human beings. Therefore, every “successful” abortion ends the life of a living human being.”[2]

“Leading embryology textbooks affirm this. Keith Moore and T. V. N. Persaud, in The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, a widely used embryology text, write that “human development begins at fertilization when a male gamete or sperm (spermatozoon) unites with a female gamete or oocyte (ovum) to form a single cell— a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.”[3]

He goes on to quote T.W. Sdler’s Langman’s Embryology text that affirms that human life begins at fertilization.  He points the reader to a 1981, a U.S. Senate judiciary subcommittee that heard expert testimony on when human life begins. Professor Micheline Matthews-Roth of Harvard University Medical School told the subcommittee, “It is incorrect to say that biological data cannot be decisive. . . . It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception.” Other expert citations are offered by Klussendorf and are important sources for the reader to examine.

“Embryology textbooks uniformly state that new human life comes into existence upon completion of fertilization.” [4] The scientific, embryonic research supports the conclusion that life begins at conception and human beings didn’t come from a fetus but are fetuses. So, the question of enquiry is clear: what is the unborn.  The scientific (not religious) response is that the unborn at every stage are human – not mature, but a complete, whole human being in its essence.   

“From conception onward, the human embryo is fully programmed, and has the active disposition, to develop himself or herself to the next mature stage of a human being,”[5] write Robert George and Patrick Lee.

So, as much as I admire and in principle will agree with Elisabeth Hasselbeck’s argument on The View, the pro-life position is not founded on religion, but on science.  “Pro-lifers don’t look to theology to tell them these things but to the science of embryology.”[6]  Where religion comes into the discussion is what follows when one has properly heard the science.  My question is, by what code of ethics or morality is it right to kill a defenseless human being without justification?  This is where Hasselbeck is correct. “"I believe our Creator assigns value to life, and that those lives have plan and purpose over them as designed by God that are not limited to the circumstances of conception, nor the situations they're born into."

If someone properly answers the question, “What is the unborn”, the morality is clear.  And this is where Hasselbeck’s solution is totally appropriate: adoption is a better pro-choice argument.

 

 

---

[1] Scott Klusendorf. The Case for Life: Equipping Christians to Engage the Culture (Kindle Locations 201-203). Kindle Edition.

[2] Ibid, (Kindle Locations 555-557).

[3] Ibid, (Kindle Locations 565-568).

[4] Ibid,(Kindle Location 863).

[5] Robert P. George and Patrick Lee, “Acorns and Embryos,” The New Atlantis, No. 7, Fall 2004/ Winter 2005, 90-100; http:// www.thenewatlantis.com/ publications/ acorns-and-embryos.

[6] Scott Klusendorf. The Case for Life: Equipping Christians to Engage the Culture (Kindle Locations 856-857). Kindle Edition.

Faking It With, “I’m Fine!”

It was the title that got my attention: No More Faking Fine – Ending the Pretending.  As it turned out the book was the life story of Esther Fleece, an autobiography, and it was a practical guide through the biblical practice of lament.  “Lament is how Christians grieve. It is how to help hurting people. Lament is how we learn important truths about God and our world. My personal and pastoral experience has convinced me that biblical lament is not only a gift but also a neglected dimension of the Christian life for many twenty-first-century Christians.”[1]

Esther begins No More Faking Fine with a story from her childhood—a moment which deeply impacted her. It was the day she began pretending. Over and over through the Bible, we read stories of lament. Stories where God’s people cried out to Him, demanding to know why. From the Israelites in Egypt to Job at Satan’s hands, God’s people lament. Some of the best laments are recorded in the Psalms. And it is these stories and laments that taught Esther to face her own pain and walk through it to help others.

The second and third part of the book, Esther looks at examples of lament prayers and then how lament moves forward to healing, respectively.  Jim Daly from Focus on the Family writes, “For many of us, when someone asks how we’re doing, our automatic response is “fine”—even when we aren’t. Esther Fleece transparently shares her story of “faking fine” until she couldn’t anymore—and how God has brought emotional healing as she learned to stop pretending. This is an encouraging and helpful book.”

Here are my quotations from the book that I think is impressive:

“Without lament, there is no joy.” (p. 15).

“Of course, the last thing I wanted was for anyone to know I felt this way. My busy days were spent performing and producing, keeping up appearances, praising God in public while wondering in private if He even cared.” (p. 18).

“The pressure to keep up is sometimes so significant that we default to everything being fine—even our unhappy lives . . ..”  (p. 31).

“I have learned through the years that God does not want just our happy; He also really wants our sad. Everything is not fine, and God wants to hear about it. He is drawn to us when we’re mourning and blesses us in a special way. God is not up there minimizing our pain and comparing it to others who have it worse than we do. God wants all pain to be surrendered to Him, and He has the capacity to respond to it all with infinite compassion.” (p. 35).

“Think of the people who say everything is “fine” all the time. How many times is “how are you?” asked in our church hallways and coffee times only to be responded with an automatic “good!”—even if it’s not true?” (p. 36).

“Laments don’t need to be carefully crafted prayers. Lament is the language that God has given us to use when we are hurting. It’s a language that sometimes means tears or groans or simply feeling an emotion.” (p. 76).

“Even though the psalmist was feeling despair, he chose to remember God’s goodness and His wonderful deeds. Could I try the same thing? Could I find something to praise God about? The enemy wants us to stay stuck in despair, but God wants our laments to lead into a deeper recognition and understanding of Him.” (p. 95).

“Far from a complaint, this lament is a bold declaration that God is present, hears, and is powerful to act on our behalf. “How long?” is an expression in Scripture of staking one’s hope in the only One who is able to save.” (p. 127).

“I was so used to sucking it up and making it on my own, and it became a gift when God made it clear that He no longer wanted me to live this way. God severs our “faking fine” tactics in order to show us a better way. I just didn’t see it at the time. We rarely do. (p. 178).

“You will know you are coming through a lament when you begin to hear a new song of praise.” (p. 206).

Esther Fleece Allan’s book, No More Faking Fine, Ending the Pretending is available on Amazon.  I’ve listened to several good sermons on Lamenting, both from my own Church and elsewhere.  A great series by the author of Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy Discovering the Grace of Lament, Mark Vroegop has a series online that can be found HERE.  A really helpful and moving book is, Lament for a Son, by Nicholas Wolterstorff. For students, Dr. Bruce Waltke’s, James M. Houston, and Erika Moore wrote a book, The Psalms as Christian Lament A Historical Commentary, which is an excellent commentary on Lament Psalms.    

“For to have a genuine human existence as God intended us to enjoy is to exercise lament before him. This is expressive of his sovereign grace, of our trust in his good purposes, and of our final destiny, to be transformed to the image of his Son.”[2]

 

---

[1] Vroegop, Mark. Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy (p. 21). Crossway. Kindle Edition.

[2] Waltke, Bruce K.; Houston, James M.; Moore, Erika. The Psalms as Christian Lament: A Historical Commentary (p. 10). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.

 

Christianity IS A Religion!

G.K. Chesterton rightly observed that "A heresy is always a half-truth turned into a whole falsehood" (America, November 9, 1935).  Or elsewhere he wrote that "every heresy is a truth taught out of proportion" (Daily News, June 26, 1909).  I wrote the article below in 2012.  I keep hearing this fallacy from dear Christians over and over again.  They say, "Christianity isn't a religion, it's a relationship." This half-truth is leading the Church to disastrous results.   Here's my former article.  See my conclusions at the end. 

________________________________________________

I have heard (and probably said) on many occasions that Christianity isn't a religion, it's a relationship.  Unfortunately that's only a half-truth.  We better stop bashing religion because we will soon learn that the wound is self-inflicted.  Jefferson Bethke has a blog post and one of his YouTube videos went wild as he bashed religion. The huge problem for us if we decide to run down this road is that Jesus was very religious.   As Kevin DeYoung intuitively writes: 

Jesus was a Jew. He went to services at the synagogue. He observed Jewish holy days. He did not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets, but to fulfill them (Matt. 5:17). He founded the church (Matt. 16:18). He established church discipline (Matt. 18:15-20). He instituted a ritual meal (Matt. 26:26-28). He told his disciples to baptize people and to teach others to obey everything he commanded (Matt. 28:19-20). He insisted that people believe in him and believe certain things about him (John 3:16-18; 8:24). If religion is characterized by doctrine, commands, rituals, and structure, then Jesus is not your go-to guy for hating religion.

Not only was our Lord, Teacher and Savior very religious, His Word commands us to be "religious":  

"If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world." (James 1:26-27, ESV).

The adjective in this quote from James (religious) is the Greek word θρῆσκος [threskos]. It actually has ideas of fearing and trembling before God in worship.  The Scripture is replete with those ideas.  James is pretty clear: a managed tongue; a care for the needy in mercy and compassion; and a pursuit of holiness is God's idea of religion.

So, before we bash religion, let's define our terms.  Yes, Jesus did say hard things to the religious leaders of Judaism; and Paul did condemn self-made, man-made religion.   But Jesus was religious and His Word commands us to be religious.  We better define what we mean when we bash religion.! Religion bashing is not the kind of sport we should engage in readily.  I'm tired of hearing it.  It's simply not intellectually coherent to suggest that a Christian has a relationship with Jesus but no religion. 

___________________________________

We live in a world where Christians are highly individualistic and are driven by consumerism.  WHY?  One of the causes is due to this incredibly erroneous statement that Christianity is simply a relationship with Jesus.  The popular chorus goes like this, "Me and Jesus got a good thing going."   Indeed, you come to Christ on your own.  You repent and you believe.  And yes, when you are saved your new identity is to be in union with Christ. But guess what: you share that union with every other believer. And together you express your newfound relationship through the Church -- the local church.   A scant reading of the New Testament reveals the "corporateness" of the Christian faith.  We don't even pray the Lord's Prayer without saying, "Our Father . . .."  

A Christian will shrivel and die without a connection to the means of grace, the disciplines of the Spirit, all experienced through the local Church.  If it's just "Me and Jesus" you will shipwreck your faith because your Jesus is not the Jesus of the Bible.  Those that are in union with Jesus will soon find that they have an interdependent, accountable, caring relationship with others who are in union with Jesus. And all these relationships are fostered, nourished and built-up in the local church, using the ordinary means of grace. 

By definition a religion is a system of worship and faith.  Christian if you're not religious, you're in trouble.

What is a conservative?

Dr. Alberta Mohler hosted an interview with Yoram Hazony, on Mohler’s YouTube channel, “Thinking in Public”, June 15, 2022.  Yoram Hazony is an Israeli philosopher, Bible scholar, and political theorist. He is president of the Herzl Institute in Jerusalem and serves as the chairman of the Edmund Burke Foundation.  They discussed Hazony’s latest book Conservatism: A Rediscovery. I found the interview stimulating and provocative. From the discussion I gleaned this all-important question:

What is a conservative?

The dictionary defines a conservative as a person that tends or is disposed to maintaining existing views, conditions, or institutions.  They are marked by moderation and caution. So, it makes sense that a conservative is conserving something. Thus, in Canada, it is oxymoronic to call oneself a “progressive conservative.”  The point to be made is that there are permanent laws, traditions and values that dare not be changed because it risks losing what is good and right.

A point that Hazony makes is that one cannot properly call oneself a conservative unless you are a conservative is values and lifestyle.  To take the conversation further we could add that to call oneself a conservative and live a life that is not conservative is hypocritical. So, 2 questions emerge to the reader who claims to be conservative:

1. What are you conserving; and

2. Are you living a conservative lifestyle?

In the interview, Hazony, was very transparent and in fact courageous.  In examining that last decades of western conservatism, the executive word is “abandonment”.  Conservatives have abandoned God, Scripture, marriage, the family, man and woman, the sanctity of life, and so on. When a social or political movement places individual liberty as the end all and be all for all things, that is not conservatism.  It is liberalism.

The questions that face both Canadians and Albertans in the coming months is heavily rooted in the answer to the question, “What is a conservative?”  Secondly, for a political representative to embrace the category of being a conservative, do they live conservatively?  A cursory scan at those who are seeking the leadership of the United Conservative Party in Alberta reveals men and women who have abandoned God, the Bible, the Family and the sanctity of life.  There really are very few conservatives. Many so-called conservative politicians are clothed in liberal clothing.

Perhaps a question that begs an answer from prospective candidates is, “As a conservative what are you conserving?”

 

 

 

 

The People of God

In his book entitled, Between the Cross and the Throne, Matthew Emerson provides a beautiful description of the people of God all taken from the Book of Revelation.   Here’s some quotable quotes:

“John’s description of the Church can be summed up by Revelation 1:4b–5—“To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.””

“The Church is the redeemed people of God from all tribes, languages, and nations (Rev 7:9). The entire people of God is possibly indicated by the “twenty four elders” in Revelation 4:4; 11:16; and 19:4. This number is made up of two groups of twelve—one representing the tribes of Israel, and one representing the apostles. This is also exemplified in John’s numbering of the “sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel” at 144,000 (Rev 7:4, 9; 14:1).”

“The people of God are clothed with white robes, which, according to Revelation 7:13–17, means that they are the “ones coming out of the great tribulation,” who have “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Rev 7:14). In other words, the white robes indicate that their wearers are believers in Christ, those who have repented of their sins, who have trusted Christ for forgiveness, and who have been made new by his Spirit (Rev 4:4; 6:11; 7:13–17; 19:8; 22:14).”

“John also refers to believers as those who have been sealed on their foreheads with the name of God (Rev 7:4; 9:4; 13:8; 14:1; 22:4) and who have had their names written in the book of life before the foundation of the world (Rev 13:8). Both of these images assure believers that their salvation, accomplished by Christ and applied by the Spirit, is secure because of God’s great power.”

“Believers are also those who follow the commands of Jesus, keeping themselves pure and blameless (Rev 14:4–5). This includes not only in their individual morality, but also their corporate holiness in the face of economic and political corruption (see the description of the Harlot in Rev 17–18).”

“ John also combines this last image of the Bride with the new Jerusalem, the holy city coming down from heaven (Rev 21:2).”

“John also describes the Church in Revelation 4:5b–5 as reigning with Christ. As with the first description of the Church as redeemed, John uses a number of different images throughout the book to convey this point. He starts and ends the body of his vision by picturing 24 elders (representative of the whole people of God) with crowns on their heads and sitting on thrones (Rev 4:4; 20:4, 6).”

[Emphasis Mine]

Is Mental Health a Biblical Concept?

Is Mental Health a Biblical Concept? [1]

By: Garrett Higbee

Selected Quotations:

“I think it is important to note that our epistemology, anthropology, and etiology differ from our secular counterparts, who are measuring secular well-being. We see personal sin at the root of mental dysfunction and sin’s effects on this world causing tremendous suffering. We are not ignorant of human weakness and, in effect, mental illness as a result of the fall (Gen. 3), but we measure and treat it differently. Our truth as Christians is not simply based on objective and empirical evidence but also on the unseen (Eph. 6:10-12) and the authority of Scripture (2 Tim. 3:16-17).”

“Secular scientists, while often well-meaning in their pursuit of mental health, are searching in vain without understanding the power of the Cross to redeem relationship and peace with our Creator. Thus, if we pursue mental health through means of addressing symptoms and focusing on self-esteem, self-help, and self-sufficiency, we too will reap misery in the end (Matt. 10:39).”

“I believe we must continue to develop ways to reframe issues and guide our people to a biblical worldview of mental illness (Col. 2:8). While causality may vary, based on Scripture, we believe that every “mental illness” has a spiritual origin (Jer. 17:9; Rom. 1:20-24). Having a holistic and biblical perspective of man, we cannot let mental health assessment, standards, and care be abdicated to the secular therapeutic community as it has for over a century.”

“God left us the key to true mental health in His Word, the gospel. The standard for wellness is a heart redeemed by and satisfied in Christ (Ezek. 11:19). A life where we are growing a Christ-like character, mindset, and demeanor is a believer’s “new normal” (2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 2:20, Phil. 2:1-5) and the baseline for mental health in a biblical worldview. There is a paradigm shift from being conformed to a set of criteria that the world calls functional to being transformed through progressive sanctification (Rom. 12:1-2). But how? First, by abiding in Christ in deep dependency (John 15), second, by being mindful of Christ in all that we do (2 Cor. 3:18), and third, by being renewed in our thinking primarily through His Word (Eph. 4:22-24). Scripture does not mention mental health but does use words like shalom, joy, soul rest, contentment, and blessed to describe a person at peace in Christ (Ps. 4:8; 119:165; Prov. 3:17; Isa. 26:3; 32:17; John 20:21; Acts 10:36).

[Emphasis mine}

_____________________________________

1. https://www.biblicalcounselingcoalition.org/2022/04/25/is-mental-health-a-biblical-concept/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=is-mental-health-a-biblical-concept

The Unity of the Transcendentals

What a mindful! The unity of the transcendentals! It sounds like a notion developed by someone with too much time on their hands.  I hadn’t ever recalled hearing of such a concept.  The unity of the transcendentals. This is what  Dr. Albert Mohler entitled his lecture in the series Truth and Consequences, produced by Ligonier Ministries and shown in the Elk Point Baptist Adult Sunday School class on Sunday, May 1st.

So what is it, or are they?  The transcendentals are those universal virtues of the good, the beautiful, the true and the real.  They have been understood in the history of Western thought to be indispensable categories for understanding the world.  Mohler points out that the unity of the transcendentals is a foundational theological belief for the Christian because it points to the One who is good, beautiful, true, and real. The concept of unity suggests that they are indivisible.  You can’t have something good, if it’s not true or real.  Scripturally they are seen clearly in Paul’s letter to Philippi:

Philippians 4:8 (ESV): “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

Our culture craves beauty but has no clue what beauty is because it denies basic truth about God and the world as He created it.  Instead we fabricate fake beauty; we manufacture our own truth; we consider it our right to create our own reality; and so on.  All this due to a denial of God and His Word.  Dr Mohler gave an example.  He said that from the Christian worldview, a Down-syndrome child is more beautiful than a exorbitantly made-up fashion model. The former carries the Imago Deo, the latter is a fake.  Yet the former is aborted (killed) in thousands by our culture.  

Another important thing that Dr. Mohler said was that truth is never bad news.  In relation to the gospel, telling someone about the truth of their sin is necessary to point someone to Christ. The fact that Christ is presented as the solution to the problem of sin makes the bad news of sin, while a harsh reality, good news in actuality. He illustrated that point by showing that a physician’s news that one has a malignant tumour is “hard” news but if there is a remedy it is not bad news.  It is never unloving to give hard news (the Truth) if you have a solution.  So-called “bad” news becomes good because it is true.  And if it is true then it is beautiful and real.

The transcendental realities of the good, the beautiful, the true, and the real are not just philosophical mambo jumbo, they are deeply theological, because they speak of the character of God.  This Christian worldview is the only worldview that can hold together in a logical, cohesive, comprehensive package because it is based on the reality of a God who is the good, the beautiful, the true, and the real. Other worldviews cannot claim the same ability, therefore they are fractured, inconsistent, confusing and lack all logical integrity.