Some one has to do it...right?

I will not be posting anything on my blog for the next week because...I will be with our seniors on their senior trip. We will be on a cruise to Mexico. Please pray for a safe, enjoyable and uneventful trip.

William F. Buckley, Jr. 1925-2008

Yesterday a great thinker passed away. William F. Buckley, Jr. was a great thinker and writer and will be missed by many. He made a splash with his book, God and Man at Yale (1951) in which he took the Ivy League school to task for straying from its original mission.

Buckley was given credit, and rightly so, for making conservatism a system of ideas and promoting the idea of thinking in higher categories. His writing and thinking was marked by elements of critical thinking as was his actions as he was well known for several high profile debates. My first exposure to Buckley was reading one of his well written articles in National Review. His writing radically impacting my thinking in many ways.

My pastor has a well written account of Buckley's influence on him. Click HERE to read and enjoy it. William F. Buckley, Jr. will be hard to replace, but I am sure our Lord is up to the task!

You've Got to Be Joking...Again!

Is it?

You will not believe some of the ways our Lord is used to make money.

Thinking Christianly in a Postmodern World: Part I

This is the first part of a multiple part series on my Sunday School class entitled, Thinking Christianly in a Postmodern World.

How should a Christian think? Does the Bible have anything to say about how a Christian should think? Romans 12:2 reminds all of us to “not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

These are commands to all Christians as they live out their lives in the current culture. Francis Schaeffer in his book, The Great Evangelical Disaster, posits the idea that we are in a battle that is of cosmic proportions, and the primary battle is in the spiritual realm. Schaeffer believed that our problems extended from the Enlightenment and its influence upon Christianity. His premise was that the great evangelical disaster was the failure of the evangelical world to stand for truth as truth. Is he right?

We currently live in a postmodern world which has never secured a dictionary definition of the term. This is a perfect example of the whole postmodern mindset. A postmodern world has no rules and puts little stock in the idea of human progress. Truths are relative and depend on what one’s culture regards as truth. J.I. Packer states the following:

“People are sitting loose to the idea that truth might be important. Most tend to sidestep the issue.”

The reality is this: false prophets and false teachers are in our midst. They will secretly bring heresies and false doctrines; how will we recognize them and stop them? We will stop them by thinking Christianly and recognizing the postmodern world for what it is. As we conclude, I leave you to ponder several application questions.

1. What is our true Christian calling regarding our mind?
2. Have we failed to stand for truth as Truth?
3. What can we do to begin the movement away from thinking that is postmodern and towards thinking that is Christian?

In Need of a Logical Argument

After watching just a little of the political coverage on television over the weekend, I am seeking just one logical argument about anything. I admit that I know little about politics and would be a very poor politician, but as a citizen of these United States, I do not believe asking for just one logical argument is too much to ask.

At Westminster Christian Academy, we desire to teach our students to make sound logical decisions that follow the decision tree above. Logic is a discipline that is dialectical; in other words, it proceeds through a process of arguments and counterarguments. Logical inquiry must be critical and logical to gain any results in logic.

The main subject matter of logic is the argument; unlike today's ever-changing semantical landscape, an argument, in logic, is a group of statements in which one, the conclusion, is claimed to follow the others. What a concept!

In logic the deductive argument is the true and sound argument: the deductive argument can only be sound if the premises of the argument are true and the conclusion is true without a doubt. If this is not the case then it does not matter how smooth one is or who one knows...the argument is still invalid and not sound.

Validity assures us that the conclusion of the argument is true if, and only if, all premises contained in the argument are true. Valid forms of logical arguments include but are not limited to:

Modus ponens: if P, then Q
P therefore Q

Modus tollens: if P, then Q
not Q therefore not P

It is very simple to question the validity and truth of a deductive argument. One merely has to use the method of counterexample. This method states that the claim of validity may be refuted by finding a situation ( that is right, just one situation) in which a premise (only one) would be true and the conclusion false.

One may also "beg the question" by identifying a premise in the argument that is a restatement of the conclusion. What would happen to our debates and news programs if that one was applied. Throw in the fallacies of ridicule and rhetoric, and you have a miserable representation of any form of thinking in our media and political arena.

What are we to do? This is one that is simple even for me. God has a plan, and He is still in control; His plan is found in His book. We are called to "take every thought captive" and to the "renewal of our minds." How do we do this?

We do this by thinking Christianly! Over the next several weeks, I will post summaries of my Sunday School series, Thinking Christianly in a Postmodern World. In this class, I have had the honor of facilitating some great discussions, and from those discussions, we, together, have discovered more of what God would have for us. The class is loaded with very intelligent Christian people who desire more than a nominal walk. They have taught me much, and I am eager to learn more!

More Humor!

You've Got to Be Joking...

Welcome to the “I” Church the sign states. I have no idea where this church is, but it does point to one of the major problems that Christians face today: self. Today we are worried about our feelings, our rights, and our well being so much so that we forget to do many of the very things that Jesus commands. When asked what is the greatest commandment Jesus said, “to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind, and all your strength; and the second is this; love your neighbor as yourself.”

In a day when churches like this show up more than we care to admit, leaders of them claim to be one thing and yet are another. I find great irony in the fact that those who speak about postmodernism much are in fact very postmodern in their thinking and actions. Here are a few indicators of that someone who speaks of postmodernism often but is, in fact, very postmodern.

1. Jumps to the latest greatest fad instead of jumping to scripture.
2. Micromanages and avoids delegating.
3. Fears excellence and views anyone who brings it as a threat.
4. Uses change as a tool of manipulation.
5. Elevates the latest fad as the panacea of all.
6. Is an inch thick and ten miles wide regarding anything of substance.
7. Enjoys operating in crisis and urgency.
8. Short term goals and objectives always consume and replace long term goals and objectives
9. Prefers to make decisions alone and avoids consultation with others.
10. Everything tends to be all about them.

The irony of today’s world is that the more you dwell in it and talk about it the more it turns you into the very item you swore you would never be. Take it from me, unless you dwell in the scriptures and spend time with your Lord in prayer and worship, you will become the very things you swore never to be. Our charge is to pray without ceasing!

Just Thinking About...

When it comes to today's culture, many are quick to agree that there is no meaning and relativity reigns. C.S. Lewis encourages us to do some thinking on the subject before defaulting to any position. Enjoy his quote below; may it motivate all of us to think deeply about all things!

"If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark."

Worldviews and their Importance

Everyone looks at the world in a particular way. This is a picture of a very famous landmark from a very different perspective. At first glance, you might not know what it is because you have rarely seen it from this view. Why? This is the view that reduces this world famous landmark to the ordinary. By now you know that this is the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France.

Albert M. Wolters, in his book Creation Regained, stresses the importance of worldviews. He defines a worldview as "the comprehensive framework of one's basic beliefs about things." Other terms he uses for worldview are "life perspective" and "confessional vision." All are for the expressed purpose of stating that everyone on the face of the earth has a worldview. Okay, so what are we to do with that information?

What is the role of a worldview in my life? Wolters believes that our worldview functions as a guide to our life. He states that "it orients us in the world at large, gives us a sense of what is up and what is down, what is right and what is wrong in the confusion of events and phenomena that confronts us." And, as Christians we will be confronted by all of culture. Our worldview shapes the way we assess our lives in relation to the world in which we live. Wolters maintains that, as human beings, we can not do without the "orientation and guidance the worldview gives." Which brings us to proverbial white elephant: what about the Christian worldview?

Wolters devotes an entire chapter to explaining how important a worldview is to the Christian. We will not be able to withstand persecution, trials or the simplest tribulations if our worldview is skewed, fragmented or inconsistent. Wolters states that the "Christian worldview must be shaped and tested by Scripture." It will guide our lives as Christians only if it is rooted in Scripture. We must constantly check our worldview beliefs against Scripture because our tendency and default will be to appropraite many of our beliefs from a secular postmodern culture.

Where do we start? As adults we start with our children by providing them a home, a church, and a school that understands worldview teaching and takes it seriously. Wolters states that "a worldview is a matter of the shared everyday experience of humankind, an inescapable component of all human knowing, and as such it is nonscientific, or rather prescientific, in nature. It belongs to an order of cognition more basic than that of science or theory." In other words, it comes before everything else and shapes everything after it.

Why is it important to maintain a consistent Christian worldview? Wolters states it best when he writes: "if your action is out of tune with your beliefs, you tend to change either your actions or your beliefs." Which will it be for you? Will your actions move more towards Christ, or will your beliefs move more towards to the world in which you live?