Sept 19
To Collin Hansen, Tim Keller, and Russell Moore and their blogpost video discussion of how sharing the Gospel is different today than it was in the past. This appeared on the Gospel Coalition website.
I think Keller's observations about sharing the Gospel today are very good. I would add an emphasis on the focus on the failures of the Church because of today's post modernism. Post modernism employs an negative outcome-based truth system so that if a belief contributes sins like marginalizing others, dominating others, and so forth, it cannot be true. We need to realize that past sins like marginalizing others, dominating others, war and such has greatly disillusioned people so that post modernism has become a natural reaction to those institutions that practiced those sins. Post modernism expresses the betrayal people feel toward those who claimed to know the truth. This is why the faults of the Church eclipse its contributions to society.
What we Christians could learn from the post modern rejection of the Church is to increase our revulsion at the same sins that so bother post modernism.
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To Joe Carter and his blogpost that contains a praeger video that boasts about charter schools. This appeared in the Acton blog.
First, Charter schools have a mixed record when examining the effects on the students. Though there were some reported improvements in certain areas, there were reported problems as well in terms of school accountability, college preparation for the students, the ability to remain open, and regular public schools being deprived of necessary funds.
If we take college preparation for example, the LA based Alliance College-Ready Public Schools stated that 95% of their low-income students go to college, around 75% did not finish (see https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/03/14/charter-schools-college-degrees/99125468/ ).
In addition, administrators of charter schools are as liable as administrators of regular public schools of making significant financial blunders. And, as mentioned before, some charter schools don't make it through the school year (see http://www.businessinsider.com/john-oliver-charter-schools-2016-8 ).
Additional problems include fraud and racial segregation (see http://www.salon.com/2014/05/07/charter_schools_are_cheating_your_kids_new_report_reveals_massive_fraud_mismanagement_abuse/ ).
But perhaps the biggest problem with charter schools is that it is designed to work on a faulty analysis. That analysis states that lack of competition is what hurts education in the public schools especially in some urban areas. But when one talks to teachers who teach in inner city schools, their teaching performance is hampered by economic-induced instability in the homes of many of these students. Teachers sometimes design their course so that all work is done in class rather than splitting work up between in class and homework. And that doesn't include whether students get adequately fed before and after school.
Much of the instability is due to economic conditions that are described by many as hopeless. For what jobs do exist pay poverty wage even for those who have already take some college courses. Basically the economic system has abandoned certain areas of our city and that leaves people less able and motivated to get married and start traditional families.
So instead of pouring resources into urban areas that would provided economic hope for the residents by way of living wage jobs, charter schools are being formed as a way to help students escape their neighborhoods. And that is precisely the problem that is being overlooked here. That for many inner city neighborhoods, an individual's success is measured not by returning to the neighborhood to maintain a healthy status; it is measured by the ability to escape one's neighborhood. Such an approach facilitates a systemic abandonment of many inner city neighborhoods.
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To R. Scot Clark and his blogpost that quotes Carl Truman as he sides with a liberal who condemns liberal Christianity for both not being able to cope with sex and its concern for the social consequences of those who approach sex in nontraditional ways. This appeared in the Heidelblog.
I am not sure that religiously conservative Christianity can adequately cope with sex either when one considers the sexual abuse of children in the Roman Church and in the evangelical churches (see http://www.catholicconvert.com/blog/2016/11/25/sex-abuse-scandals-catholic-protestant-and-secular-you-may-be-surprised/ and https://newrepublic.com/article/142999/silence-lambs-protestants-concealing-catholic-size-sexual-abuse-scandal and http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/01/protestant-sex-abuse-boz-tchividijian_n_4019347.html ).
What seems to be a main point of emphasis both in what was quoted above and in the article cited is the animosity expressed not necessarily at sexual sins themselves, but at those who want the marginalization of the LGBT community in society to end. Pointing out that marginalization, as well as the marginalization of others, has more often than not been met with dismissiveness and derision by many religious conservative Christian leaders, one must wonder what happened to those who react that way and why aren't they conscious of the Scriptures that warn us not to judge others because of our own sins and not to act like the Pharisee from the parable of the two men praying.
In fact, when we look at signs of the authoritarian personality type, obsession with sex is one of those signs along with hostility toward those who challenge tradition (see https://www.psychologistworld.com/influence-personality/authoritarian-personality ). And if we note what was just written, that obsession with sex can come out in abusive ways and that hostility toward others forgets or even denies one's own sinfulness and need for mercy and compassion.
The PCUSA concern about the marginalization of people, the LGBT community is not the only group studied, is Biblical. We are to care about the vulnerable. But many of us religiously conservative Christians have caused Christians, both fellow conservative Christians who are also millennials and some more liberal Christians into a corner where they must pick between either marginalizing others in society or compromising Biblical standards on sex. Considering the post modern influence on conservative millennial Christians, we can understand how many millennials might be more prone to compromise those Biblical standards.
Yes, we need to warn ourselves and others about the the physical and spiritual problems that come with violating what the Bible teaches about sex. But we also need to be careful about how we warn ourselves and others and how we can respond when we do violate what the Bible teaches so that we can repent. It seems to me that too many religiously conservative Christians, such as Carl Trueman, have paid enough attention to the need of warning himself and others but have taken a 'damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead,' approach in making such warnings.
We should also note that while many of us religiously conservative Christians are so focused on the sexual sins of today, we are unwittingly or intentionally following a historical flaw that other religiously conservative Christians have made: we have sided with those with wealth and power. We should note what happened to the predominant branch of the Church during and after the French, Russian, and Spanish Revolutions because they did side with wealth and power before those respective revolutions.
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