Words mean things

I spent the last post focusing on a proclamation of the biblical definition of love and a proclamation of the Gospel.  Today, that will serve as a foundation for responding to someone making yet another claim that homosexuality is something Christians should not simply tolerate, but accept and celebrate.  This, of course, is not a new claim, as anyone who has spent more than five minutes on the Internet will quickly ascertain.

There have been many attempts made to make the case for homosexuality in Christianity, but probably the most well-known in popular culture at this time is the Matthew Vines video, as he gives his testimony of sorts and makes various claims about what the Bible "really says" about homosexuality.  Naturally, this apologetic mashup resulted in him making conflicting defenses, and was roundly shredded, most notably by Dr. James White, who dissected the video almost down to the syllabic level in exposing Vines' chicanery.  Vines now spends his days secluded from anyone who might possibly challenge his worldview.

But that dead horse will rest for the moment, as a new contender enters the ring and brings what is at least a somewhat novel argument for why Christians should welcome the new order of things: namely, that Jesus was just wrong, and Christians shouldn't just take His word for it.  Brandon Ambrosino has today's example of blatant eisegesis on the Pacific Standard website.  In an article titled "The Best Christian Argument for Marriage Equality is that the Bible Got it Wrong," Ambrosino proceeds to suggest that Christians can remain Christians, while simultaneously jettisoning entire foundational aspects of their faith, and thus proves the Apostle Paul true in 1 Corinthians 1:

For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.--1 Corinthians 1:22-25

There are a host of problems with Ambrosino's claims in this article, many of which are refuted by similar responses to revisionism like Dr. White's above.  I will focus on my response on his most blatant claim: namely, that Jesus basically didn't know what he was talking about.

Though referring to the Torah with the shorthand “Moses” is hardly proof positive that Jesus was wrong about the books' provenance (many scholars refer to the books metonymically), it’s safe to say that Jesus probably assumed Moses wrote the Pentateuch.
And if he did think that, then he was wrong.
This is a point the Evangelical bible scholar Peter Enns makes in a footnote in his book The Evolution of Adam: “Jesus here reflects the tradition that he himself inherited as a first-century Jew and that his hearers assumed to be the case.”

Calling Peter Enns "evangelical" is, to put it lightly, inaccurate.  "Evangelical" implies a belief in an "evangel," in the Gospel.  Enns has long since left any semblance of a belief in the sufficiency, clarity, or inerrancy of Scripture that would testify to this Gospel, and if you can't hold to those one wonders exactly why you would bother being considered a Christian at all if you reject the foundation of its fundamental beliefs.  Dr. Michael Kruger shredded his most recent work in an article a few months back, and which I highly recommend.

But I digress.  Ambrosino makes it clear that he does not look to the text as having any measure of truth in it, and he is free to declare that Jesus, the incarnation of the Son of God, has no idea about the true authorship of the Pentateuch.  This is exactly the sort of historical bias so common to modern popular scholarship, epitomized by the likes of Bart Ehrman and others who pursue the (long refuted) Bauer hypothesis, that takes Scripture and reduces it into a pile of disconnected phrases that can be pulled apart and set against one another in the pursuit of human autonomy.

Therefore, Ambrosino is under no obligation, in the eyes of the modern scholar, to recognize that by declaring Jesus as an ignorant no-nothing who assumes that things are how he's always been told rather than being the One who tells, he is completely ignoring the multitude of texts in which Jesus identifies Himself with Yahweh and sets out the idea that the Scriptures are not simply true because Moses wrote them.  They are true because they are about Him.

And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent. You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.--John 5:37-40

Jesus speaks to the Pharisees, people who believe that they have righteousness within themselves and within their own acts and are offended by Jesus' statements that they are, in fact, sinners in need of repentance.  And like Ambrosino, they use the Scriptures however they wish in order to prop up their own desires, rather than submit to the full testimony of the Scriptures which point unyieldingly to Jesus Christ.

The bottom line error of Ambrosino's hermeneutic is the same error found in the works of Ehrman, Enns and the like: it rejects any idea of God actually being able to reveal His will to His creation.  God, if there is a God, becomes an unfathomable mystery, and we all get to stand around looking smart as we stroke our chins and ponder the universe.  All the while, we scoff at the thought that God actually is fully capable of speaking into creation and has done so clearly.

And so, having begun with the rejection of the supernatural, we then get to take God's revelation and reduce it down into a million pieces, which we can take apart and reconstruct as we will.  Ambrosino is not doing anything new, he's just being a lot more blunt about it: don't like what the Bible says about a topic?  Well, clearly the writer just wasn't as progressive as you are, so you can reject it.  Sin?  So offensive.  Just look to the nice parts about loving people (without making any effort to understand the full argument being made or any definitions) and we have reduced the text to a mishmash of words that, at this point, mean virtually nothing.

Of course, even as we post-moderns live by this idea that we get to define our own reality, we would never treat our own words like that.  I suspect very much that if I were to take Ambrosino's column and read it the way he reads the Bible--ignoring what I don't like, "reimagining" concepts to fit my framework, and completely ignoring contexts for my own benefit--I daresay he would take issue with that.

I want to close by taking a look at a couple sections that display exactly why this style of cafeteria Christianity is utterly untenable:

What the bible most decidedly is not is some type of handbook for navigating the 21st century. It is not God, nor should it be awarded godlike status. (To treat it as such is to break the second commandment.)

Of course, exactly how we can know what the second commandment is, or why we should listen to any of God's commandments given that Ambrosino's contention is "well, the Bible is just wrong some places" is left unexplained.

Are there universal truths contained with the pages of the bible? Absolutely! Are many of those truths relevant in every age and culture, and binding to Christians everywhere? Definitely—loving your neighbor, forgiving your enemies, and looking out for the weak are obligations that Christ has put upon each person who that claims to follow him. Are there passages of Scripture that should be read as if they are describing historical events that actually transpired in this world? Of course—the physical resurrection of Jesus is a non-negotiable tenet of the Christian faith.

The inconsistencies abound: if Jesus is not who He says he is, on what grounds exactly does He have the right or ability to make anything binding to anyone.  Furthermore, why did Jesus die, and rise again?  I've heard pastors in mainline liberal churches that had little other interest in a solid, grammatically and historically accurate exegesis of the text that could stand up and say "I believe Jesus was a real person, that he died on the cross, and that he rose again."  But that statement had precisely zero impact on anything else they did, on the way they lived their lives, or on the theology that informed any other preaching to their congregations.  As far as anyone can tell, Jesus rose again because He was just such a nice guy, and you can't keep a good guy down.

I would simply ask Brandon: who exactly does he believe Jesus is?  He's an ignorant peasant walking around just parroting the Torah...and He rose from the dead?  There is no consistency, no real desire to see Jesus as a real person here, let alone as who He said that He was.  The consistent and harmonious testimony of Scripture is rejected, and instead the text is pitted against itself as passages, stripped of context and any meaning beyond the surface, are set at odds the original writers would never have agreed with.

So quite simply, the idea that this would be a "Christian argument" is a non-starter.  To embrace it requires rejecting Scripture's clear testimony about Jesus as the monogenes huios, the one and unique Son of God.  If you do that, there is no foundation to believe in anything Scripture says about Jesus, which renders Ambrosino's statements about Christ's resurrection head-scratchingly odd.  Just as John made it clear that those who denied Christ's having come in the flesh (as opposed to the docetists who believed that Jesus only appeared to be human but was really spirit) were not true Christians but in fact were deceivers and false teachers, likewise you cannot claim that Christ was merely a man who said silly baseless things without abandoning your bona fides of the faith.

But this is why the Bible says that "salvation belongs to the Lord."  Apart from the work of the Holy Spirit no one would believe, because on our own we do not look for God but instead we seek after our own selfish desires.  But thanks be to God for His mercy, in calling His people to Himself in the person and work of Christ.  His mercy is everlasting and His grace is to be desired by all men.  I would say to Brandon Ambrosino: repent of your unbelief, and turn to the real Jesus, the one to which Scripture testifies, not your imagined one who can provide no atonement, cannot testify to the truth of the living God, and certainly cannot bring conviction of or repentance from sin.  Your Jesus cannot heal, cannot find the lost (because he is lost himself), and has utterly no value.  This is not the Christ of Scripture or history.  I would call you to repent, and to know Him as Lord and Savior.

Love

I have pondered exactly how to write on the issue of gay marriage in the aftermath of the Supreme Court's decision to legalize it.  I am torn--not on my position on the subject, because that is firm opposition.  Rather, I am torn in exactly how to approach it.  I have friends near and far and coworkers who consider themselves to be homosexual or to be "allies."  My goal here is not to write an angry rant, because I'm not angry and it would accomplish nothing.  Certainly there is a measure of disappointment but that is tempered by the knowledge that God is God, and while man foolishly believes in his own autonomy, God will ultimately be glorified in all things.

The heart of man plans his way,
   but the Lord establishes his steps.
--Proverbs 16:9

However, I have come to face the fact that no matter what I say, no matter how calmly or reasonably I seek to discuss this, at this point there is little room for such things in the eyes of many.  The behavior of so many in recent months has made this abundantly clear: anything short of full-throated endorsement of homosexuality and its partners bisexuality and transgenderism will not be tolerated.  I don't say all this to set myself up as a potential victim; rather, I simply want to lay groundwork for this discussion, and pray that those who disagree with me will 1) actually read through this and allow me to speak for myself, rather than inserting thoughts and claims into my words that I do not actually make, and 2) understand this to be written in a spirit of love.

Pardon my tone

I have a long blog post in the works that I may or may not get finished today that will discuss issues related to the gay marriage decision and its fallout, but in the aftermath of the release of the Planned Parenthood video revealing that abortions are often performed in such a way so as to maximize the ability of the doctors to harvest organs from the dead child, I couldn't let this story pass by without comment:

Reuters: Planned Parenthood head sorry for tone in video on fetal tissue use

Let's start with just the headline.  Firstly, as the good Dr. White remarked on Twitter yesterday, "tone" seems to have become the most dastardly crime one can commit--you can say the most heinous thing imaginable, but if you say it in a nice way or in such a way that it seems like you are trying to be sensitive to others, that excuses the actual content of the statement.  Of course, given that our culture today seems to be rapidly fleeing from the idea that language has any firm meaning, I suppose this shouldn't be terribly surprising, but it is still head-smackingly inane.

Secondly, I realize that Reuters is probably using the phrase "fetal tissue" because it is considered by the bulk of the media to be the most "neutral" phrase, but I believe this is a sign that the idea of the secular worldview being completely on board with all things proven true scientifically is complete nonsense.  I still find it fascinating that in this day and age, far advanced beyond the then-rudimentary prenatal knowledge of 1973, we still continue to pretend that we haven't had it established beyond any reasonable doubt that a fetus* is a child, a separate and new life.  The only thing that could possibly make it more clear at this point would be a literally transparent womb, and we virtually have that with the incredible advances in ultrasound imaging now available.

Just a few parts of the story I wanted to comment on:

Planned Parenthood's president apologized on Thursday for the "tone and statements" of a senior staff member who was secretly recorded in a video that critics say suggests the U.S. reproductive health organization sells aborted fetal tissue. Despite Planned Parenthood's denials of the allegation, the video's release earlier this week has rapidly spurred investigations in the Republican-led U.S. Congress. Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a new video statement that the nonprofit organization does not profit from fetal tissue donation.

The verbal sleight-of-hand I have been seeing by PP defenders on Facebook is ever-present: "selling" versus "profiting."  We'll let slide the fact that they absolutely do profit from providing the abortions themselves.  I'm sure once the various governors and attorneys general investigating this are done, we'll have a very clear count of exactly what sort of margin Planned Parenthood is pulling down on baby livers.

She also apologized for the remarks of Dr. Deborah Nucatola, its senior director of medical services, recorded discussing fetal body parts over lunch and wine in a restaurant. She was meeting with actors posing as buyers from a biological company. "Our top priority is the compassionate care that we provide. In the video, one of our staff members speaks in a way that does not reflect that compassion," said Richards, whose statement did not name Nucatola.

This concept continues from the above defense being used by many right now: talk about Planned Parenthood as though it's a poor put-upon woman's clinic that just happens to have some detractors.  Don't allow anyone to bring up what is actually being discussed in the video: the murder of unborn children, and that murder being done in a particular way so as to preserve certain organs for use by others.  This is being acclaimed by the defenders, appallingly enough, as some sort of act akin to organ donation (I even saw one person, without the slightest sense of self-awareness, say "You must be against organ donation" to someone writing about this in a similar vein to me right now.)  This goes along with the longtime claim of abortion rights supporters: unborn children are just tissue, their disposal is the right of the mother and is without consequence.

The conscience-scarring act of adopting this viewpoint vexes me to the core, and demands a cry of "Repent!" from every believer.  Not because we are morally superior, but precisely because the only reason we have any different perspective on our own humanity beyond "It's there for me to do as I please" is by the grace of God.  That we have come to encourage mothers to regard their unborn offspring, the most helpless state of human life one could imagine, as simply a clump of tissue to be disposed of is wicked, and surely it is just as wicked as those who labored to defend the institution of slavery in the United States by claiming that an institution which debased and degraded its victims to the level of animal was, in fact, for their benefit.  George Orwell certainly did not invent doublespeak, but he codified very well the thought process of humanity when it rejects its Creator and chooses slavery and death.

And so it is with "compassionate care."  I fully acknowledge that Planned Parenthood does do many good things in providing needed healthcare for women, especially women without a great deal of means.  That does not excuse the wickedness of calling the act of killing an unborn child "compassionate care."

Finally, there's this:

Richards said Planned Parenthood stood by its work helping women to donate tissue for "lifesaving" research. "We know the real agenda of organizations behind videos like this," she said. "Their mission is to ban abortion completely and cut women off from care at Planned Parenthood and other health centers."

If I may be so bold: you are bloody right it is.  Just like it was the goal of abolitionists like William Wilberforce, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Harriet Tubman to see the practice of slavery abolished and to see an end to the treatment of African-Americans as subhuman, so today those who have been set free from bondage to sin by the power of the Holy Spirit must raise their voice in protest against those who would degrade the imago Dei through this assault on motherhood and on our most helpless.

And I choose to do this by pointing out the evil in this practice, and by calling all who consider this act to be acceptable to have their eyes opened, to see the truth of what abortion really is before them, and to repent and know true forgiveness and life in Jesus Christ.  I do this because eliminating abortion is not the true end: the true end is in our work as ministers of reconciliation, calling our fellow imagebearers of God around us to the foot of the cross of Christ and to the true life only found in the Spirit.

*And I don't say "fetus" derogatorily, it's a legitimate word to describe a particular point in life just like "zygote" or "child" or "adolescent" is, or like "larva" is for an insect.  The issue comes in when the word is loaded down with the implication that "fetus" means "clump of random cells that are totally not at all anything you should worry about until they magically turn into a baby on the way down the birth canal."

The common grace of tragedy

The wickedness of men is on full display as per usual, and tonight's edition comes in the form of the latest atrocity perpetrated by ISIS.  The radical Islamist group has released video of them beheading a group of Christians, features quotes from the Qu'ran and accusing the Copts (the particular Christian group to which these victims of ISIS' murderous deeds belonged) of evil deeds against Muslims and Islam.   Naturally the response online has been vocal and strident, condemning ISIS and many calling for further action to be taken against them.  It is not my intention to weigh in on that issue, because I think the answer is a clear: Romans 13 gives the sword to governments to wield in the name of pursuing justice and defending the weak.  No, the issue here is: how should believers, seeing their brothers being murdered for their faith, react to this?  Anger is natural, but blinding and too often destructive to what we are called to do even in the face of such oppression.  There are many passages that come to mind when these events occur, and the first one that I thought of is one that I've used previously:

There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them,“Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”-Luke 13:1-5

I always come back to Jesus' response in times of great tragedy: He doesn't rant against Roman oppression, nor express helpless sadness at the seemingly meaningless loss of life in either example He discusses.  Rather, He turns the issue right back on those who came to Him: tragedy is not a sign that the sufferer was a greater sinner, but rather it is a warning that judgment is coming to everyone.

To be sure, there is a link between sin and suffering.  Were it not for the presence of sin in the world, there would be no suffering.  Sin brought death, pain and suffering into the world, and because the world is under the power of sin, suffering is a daily reality within it.  But the fact that a person suffers, does not indicate a direct relationship to his particular sin.--R.C. Sproul, Walking with God: Luke, p.276  

But what do we say in the face of such wicked actions?  Why shouldn't Christians just do the same thing any other seemingly reasonable person would do and arm up to go to war?  Because we do not have the same relationship with death that the natural man does, both in our understanding of what death truly is--a display of the brokenness brought into the world by sin--and in what death truly means to us as an end to this mortal life:

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.-Philippians 1:21

But the fact is, most people don't see death this way, certainly not such a death as this.  It shocks, angers, saddens, and so it should.  Because outside of Christ, we simply stand in Adam and we stand to gain nothing but what we have earned through a lifetime of rebellion against God.  Death is the result of sin.  But at the same time, death can also be seen as a common grace--for observers.  Certainly, those who came to Jesus were called to heed that grace and repent, and that is the call believers must make in all tragedy: not a simplistic fear-mongering, but a sincere and loving Gospel call to repent and turn to Jesus as Lord and Savior.

But what of the brothers who died?  So many have died and will die, before the end, before Christ returns and sets all things right.  How do we face that?  Not recklessly, because we are called to be wise and winsome in how we live and deal with those around us.  But we can be bold, we can face danger bravely, and it is because of this that I turn to the truth expressed in the simple phrase "perseverance of the saints": God saves His people perfectly, leads them through paths He has laid to strengthen them, and there is nothing that will prevent Him from accomplishing His purposes.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;    we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.-Romans 8:31-39

I think Christians need to be wise about how we discuss this, as our Muslim neighbors are watching.  I'm not talking about AK47-wielding radicals, I'm talking about our literal physical neighbors, many of whom came here because they wanted to get away from groups like ISIS and the deadly influence they have on them and their families, wanting to worship in peace.  Yet at the same time, we know that simply escaping that is not sufficient, for apart from the saving grace of Christ they will perish in their sin just as much as the murderous radical.  There is no amount of good work that will ever balance out the scales in one's own favor, no amount of prayers, alms, service, or pilgrimage will ever put you in good standing before a holy and just God.  Only by His grace and by the atonement of His Son in your place can you have righteousness, freedom, and right standing with God.

This doesn't mean that we don't speak out against such wicked behavior, but we need to exercise wisdom, and remember that even in this God provides avenues for His Word to go forth, that nothing stops the Holy Spirit from His work.  Love your neighbors.  Do good to those that persecute you.  Our freedom even in the face of death to obey means that we ought to love well even those who wish to stand in our way.

"Easy for you to say, from your comfortable not-being-threatened-by-soldiers home in America!"  Yes, it is.  And this is something even I have to take to heart--after all, this blog is more about me preaching to myself than to anyone else.  But even here there is great need for the Gospel to go forward in the face of danger and threats, and for people to be bold in the way they love.  My prayer is that the way I live, and the way I die, are not just a common grace exercised for the momentary comfort of a rebel awaiting judgment, but that they would be used in His saving grace, in removing hard stony, sin-loving hearts and replacing them with hearts of flesh, desiring to glorify God through giving up selfishness and turning to worship the true Lord of all.    

Theology Matters: Eulogy for a dead man

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.--Matthew 7:15-20

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.--Galatians 5:16-24

I have mentioned it a couple other times here, but I can recall a line in one of C.S. Lewis' books to the effect of people having two equally wrong ways to deal with sin: we either take it too harshly and become legalistic jerks, or we take it far too lightly and begin thinking we can do whatever we wish.  In both cases we cease to recognize both the effect and the gravity of Christ crucified: Jesus died on the cross because our sins are deadly serious, and because He has died and risen again we are able to walk in freedom and grace--away from our sin, into God-glorifying lives of sanctification.

Unless you've lived under a rock for the past decade or so, you have probably seen the antics and nonsense from the so-called "Westboro Baptist Church."  I say "so-called" because they are not a church, and they are certainly not Baptist.  They have done everything from give incredibly foolish and nonsense-filled interviews on TV to protesting funerals, to proclaim that the death being mourned has been brought about by a vengeful God because of America's sins, in particular its tolerance of homosexuality.  There is precisely zero understanding of the Gospel, no desire whatsoever to submit to the full counsel of Scripture, and a complete lack of regeneration evident in their words and deeds.  In short, this is what happens when Category A Self-Righteous Hypocrite goes on steroids: you have someone who can see what's wrong but believes, foolishly, that because they aren't engaged in such and such sin that they are clean.  Believing the Gospel does not produce this wicked fruit.

But likewise, the answer is not "You can do anything you want to do, because God made you and therefore anything you want is okay!"  And those are the two sides we find engaged in a battle of "who can be more wrong," amplified by the recent death of Westboro's founder, Fred Phelps.  The fruit of his life is on display for all to see, and one can argue he has been one of the biggest allies of the pro-homosexuality movement: his behavior and words have provoked such a dramatic response that it's hard for anyone with even an ounce of compassion for another human to find a way to make an argument against the normalization of homosexuality.  And so the diseased, thistley, dried-up fruit of his tree is seen before the whole world, many of whom turn and...eat the diseased, thistley, dried-up fruit of unashamed sinfulness.

Phelps was a man dead in his heart reading from a book that could not possibly have any meaning to him.  "How can you say that?" you ask.  "I thought Christians weren't supposed to judge."  Oh, but I can--by what the man produces.  And we know what the life of a man transformed by the power of the Gospel and the Holy Spirit looks like; read it again:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

 So why write all this?  I'm sure that few would begrudge this if I said I simply was in a mood and wanted to kick the man while he was (literally) down, but that could not be farther from the truth.  On the contrary, I'm writing this as a follow-up to my last post, as a demonstration of why, exactly, theology does matter.  When we view the God of the Bible as nothing more than pure, unadulterated judgment of God and do not preach the Gospel, do not believe in God's power to save (in spite of their claimed "Calvinist" position) and do not believe in God's ultimate goal of restoring His creation but rather simply see Him showing up on the scene at some point to damn everyone except...well, them.  When we do not seek to line theology up with what the Bible actually says--the whole Bible--there is almost no end to the foolishness that can result.  Fred Phelps was perhaps one of the most obvious and blatant examples of it, but the danger always exists and we must be vigilant to sit in the Word, to sit in prayer and to celebrate with gratitude and great joy the mercy God has shown us in the person and work of Jesus--for if we don't, we tread very dangerous ground.

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.--Galatians 1:6-9

Theology matters

Play on words title!  The best kind.  Theology matters, like "issues of theology," and "theology is relevant and important and you should care about it."  Let's go!

The saying, of course, is thieved with apologies from Dr. White.  I've wanted to write something about this for a while, but I feel like I finally found some more coherence to what I wanted to say after seeing an article on a friend's Facebook wall, and after Sunday's sermon.  The Holy Spirit really used the sermon to convict me and teach me about critical issues of theology, which I want to raise here.  I've talked about the doctrines of grace, and how I believe they are not the objectionable things many people believe them to be, but are instead a message of hope that all Christians should embrace joyfully and rely on in knowing that God has made promises to His people that He will fulfill.  First, though, to the article.

It's from the TED Blog, on "10 facts about infidelity" from Helen Fisher.  I have not gone out and studied her work in detail, but it's evident that she has done quite a bit of study on relationships.  It's not my intent to dissect her work on any level other than that presented in the blog post, with the perspective of a believer.  Those who love to dig into this topic will note that there are quite a few books on the subject linked from the article for further reading.  While there are points made that most anyone could agree with, it is clear that what we have here is what happens when you look at relationships with a presupposition that simultaneously tries to deny God as having any role or say over us, yet still maintain some semblance of purpose to sex and relationships.  The result is...well, we'll see below:

1. Pairbonding is a hallmark of humanity. Data from the Demographic Yearbooks of the United Nations on 97 societies between 1947 and 1992 indicate that approximately 93.1% of women and 91.8% of men marry by age 49. More recent data indicates that some 85% of Americans will eventually marry.

2. However, monogamy is only part of the human reproductive strategy. Infidelity is also widespread. Current studies of American couples indicate that 20 to 40% of heterosexual married men and 20 to 25% of heterosexual married women will also have an extramarital affair during their lifetime.

And let's back up to the introduction:

Love isn’t so much an emotion, says Helen Fisher in her TED Talk. No, love is a brain system — one of three that that’s related to mating and reproduction.  It’s those other two systems that explain why human beings are capable of infidelity even as we so highly value love.

 And the third point from the post:

3. Brain architecture may contribute to infidelity. Human beings have three primary brain systems related to love. 1) The sex drive evolved to motivate individuals to seek copulation with a range of partners; 2) romantic love evolved to motivate individuals to focus their mating energy on specific partners, thereby conserving courtship time and metabolic energy; 3) partner attachment evolved to motivate mating individuals to remain together at least long enough to rear a single child through infancy together. These three basic neural systems interact with one another and other brain systems in myriad flexible, combinatorial patterns to provide the range of motivations, emotions and behaviors necessary to orchestrate our complex human reproductive strategy. But this brain architecture makes it biologically possible to express deep feelings of attachment for one partner, while one feels intense romantic love for another individual, while one feels the sex drive for even more extra-dyadic partners.

Now, it's not my intention to dissect this or necessarily respond to this in depth; the problem, of course, is not that I am some science-ig'nant fundie--the problem is the fundamentally different worldviews that we are bringing to the table here.  I don't deny the possibility that what the article says is factual: that there are brain architectures that relate to love, faithfulness or lack thereof, and all related issues.  What I say, however, is that this is not proof of the accidental nature of our creation or the impersonal nature of our existence--rather, that it points to a very personal Creator who makes us in His image.  We will come back to this another day as it relates to the question of "does that mean God made us to be unfaithful" (the answer is no), but only because I want to get to the next point:

God has made us in His image and loves us.  Because He made us He despises the things that destroy that image and distract us from being that.  It's why the dual nature of God as being both infinite and personal is crucial to understand, and why Jesus coming as a human and living the life of poverty that He did is such an immense display of God's love, for so many reasons; indeed, there are good reasons why discussions of that subject fills untold volumes and I suspect I will be able to write here for years to come as I examine the many facets of that particular gem of truth and beauty.

But when we abandon the theology of a Creator God who made us for a purpose, whose purposes are definite and involve the ultimate good for His children, and who uses all circumstances for His glory and our ultimate benefit, we end up viewing things like sex, marriage and fidelity in such a way where it is simply the byproduct of chemicals mixing, genes creating tendencies and all of it is...well, the only real descriptive word is "purposeless."  It exists for the sake of us, it terminates on our desires of the moment, and if that philosophy becomes dominant, why is anyone surprised that a culture becomes obsessed with self and death?  But the alternative is just as vexing:

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
    and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”--1 Corinthians 1:18-31

The point is that it matters how we view God.  This is a difficult thing to discuss in America especially, because of our idea of the "separation" of church and state and the way that most people operate their lives, with everything in its neat little box and ultimately there to serve our desires rather than everything existing in the single box of "this belongs to God and serves His glory."  In all honesty I have a huge struggle with this, and I have to spend time praying about things like my attitude at work and the way I interact with others.  I know where I'm strong, but my weaknesses sometimes seem overwhelming.  But I have been blessed with people around me who encourage me, pray for me and remind me to keep praying in turn, and God has shown the fruits of submitting all my life to him.

So this is the fundamental split between where I was, and where I am, and it comes down to the name of this blog and its inspiration: the purpose of a man's life is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.  Glorifying God is not drudgery--it is joy, and it's a joy we are able to partake in because we are made by a loving God!  Because He is a loving God, He has seen fit not to leave man purely to his own devices and ultimate demise into death, but to secure a people for Himself, to pay the ransom for them, and to move perfectly to set them from bondage to the slavery of sin and adopt them as His own.  


But if we view God as nonexistent, irrelevant, or something that goes "over there, between 9 and 11am on Sunday," rather than our Creator, Sustainer, Father, and King, then why is anyone surprised when we find our lives out of wack, imbalanced, and broken?  We try to sustain ourselves with spoiled food, to drink water from broken cups. 

And this is why I am unashamed to use the word "reformed" about myself and why I was glad to hear Ross' message Sunday: God made me in His image, but even as the rebellious, self-centered image-tarnisher I was, God loved me and let me see the glory and the mercy of Christ on the cross, let me be indwelt by the Spirit and know Him as my Father, who cleans me up and keeps on pushing, loving, and encouraging.  Not because I have done or ever will do anything to deserve it, but because it is His good pleasure to do so--He knows better than anyone that I certainly do not deserve it.  And that is why seeing an article that discusses sex and infidelity in such empty concepts as "pair bonding" just struck me as bizarre: sex was created and given as a gift, marriage given as a mysterious and beautiful image of the relationship between Christ and the church, and my wife given as a gift to me by a gracious God who uses both of us to sharpen and sanctify the other.

This has been somewhat rambling, but in the end this has been an opportunity to reflect with deep gratitude to God for who He is and for His incredible mercy and grace in my life.  It's not reflected by things or finances or anything except a heart that longs for Him and a family that seeks to grow closer to Him daily.  I pray for more and more of that, that He would increase in my life, and that I would decrease.

Let's try this again

Well, the last post certainly brought one of the more heated responses this blog has ever gotten.  Not on the post itself, but on Twitter it certainly brought on some discussions as well as some rather uncalled-for responses, which I will not get into here.  The author of the piece I was responding to, Micah J. Murray, did in fact reply to me on Twitter.  In the process we learned several things:

1. Micah does, in fact, believe that one can be walking in something the Bible calls sin unrepentantly and still be saved. 
2. He was unwilling to directly answer the question of who, exactly, was saying that gay people were worse sinners than other sinners; his first response was a vague comment about "conservative churches," when pressed for specifics he did not reply. 
3. Those who agreed with him continued to argue a point I specifically disagreed with, preferring to set up a "hater" straw man to actually engaging my arguments.  They operated on the assumption that I was setting gay people apart from others, rather than insisting that they be counted as part of the population that makes up the world: rebel sinners in need of God's grace.
4. Where Micah did attempt to engage my actual arguments, his position was Scripturally deficient, rooted in his opinion rather than anything biblical.  Where Scripture did enter into it, issues of definition abound. 

Now, let me say that I believe I understand the driving force behind where he is right now.  I've walked with many men and women who have felt burned by the church, felt like they came into a body of believers with struggles and pain and needing someone to listen and help them, and came away feeling rejected and lost.  And this is a compassion that I share, and that ought to be shared by every believer; like him, I want people to know Jesus not as a condemner but as a savior, one who sets people free from their slavery to sin.  I want people to rejoice at the name of Christ, to have the ability to trust him wholly and freely.

But the problem, and the place where we are going to part ways, is that I cannot see biblically how any argument can be made that one can be unrepentantly in any sin and still be saved.  Furthermore, the modern cultural redefinition of sin to "if it doesn't hurt anyone else, it's okay" is not an allowance Scripture provides for.  Not that Jesus cannot save anyone the Father gives to Him, because we know that He will do so.  But with he and his followers unwilling to even acquiesce to the idea that homosexuality is a sin, the struggle here is with presuppositions.  So let's start from the foundation, from the beginning of understanding our relationship with God and why Christ came.

Music in church and heart

If you're a Christian (or heck, not a Christian) and on any form of social media, you probably saw this video on your newsfeed within the last couple of weeks:


The Worship of God Q&A: Holy Hip-Hop from NCFIC on Vimeo.

The topic of "holy hip-hop," "reformed rap," or whatever you'd like to call it is not a new one.  It, along with Christian rock music and its descendants like Christian metal, have a history of controversy in the church.  I have experience from my much, much younger days of our church undergoing a split because the older, hymn-preferring people were greatly vexed by a new music minister that dared to bring in more contemporary worship music (very, very tame stuff by today's standards--things like early Michael W. Smith, Michael Omartian, and the like).  The gentlemen above do not seem to have a much better opinion, or understanding, of rap music as it exists today in Christianity.

The reaction to their words has been very broad of scope, and while of course there have been a lot of ill-advised words from random Internet commenters, the thoughtful and thorough responses of many Christian rappers have been very interesting and heartening to see.  My own thoughts are a combination of annoyance, which I am trying to suppress, and a desire to teach.

I have a music degree, and I spent, and continue to spend, a lot of time thinking about, studying, and participating in or performing music.  Music history, while generally a rather vexing subject for any performance major especially when you're talking about history before the Baroque era, is a subject that one should at least be nominally familiar with before drawing judgment on any form of music.  I say this because of one of the points made by Scott Aniol, a point he defends in a continued discussion with rapper Shai Linne on his website: that rap music is, by its very nature, immoral.  I am deeply concerned by his arguably ignorant statements he makes about hip hop in general and Christian hip hop especially.  To be totally honest, I view his position as descriptive of the problem of communication between American evangelicals and much of the rest of society: so many evangelicals are so concerned about "cleaning up" things and putting them within a certain little Christian box.

But when that's your desire, when you're more worried about things like the style of music your kid is listening to than the actual content of it, you're missing out on actually engaging your kid where he is.  Likewise, we have a huge section of this country that exists in hip hop culture.  I can speak from experience in saying that it's very easy for cultural conservatives to look at that culture, roll their eyes at its style and speech and say things like "Rap is just 'crap' without the C."  But I'm not interested in trying to conserve a particular culture: I'm interested in seeing more and more people come to know, love and worship Jesus Christ as Lord.  How is it possibly helpful for me to come up to someone who has existed in this world and say "Well, it's great that you want to know Jesus, but you're going to need to wear these clothes, throw out all this music and start listening to some Bill Gaither."*

Answer: it isn't.  When you put up all these extra, culture-oriented barriers between a person and knowing Christ, the concern arises that you don't particularly understand the Gospel, and might even need to review the book of Galatians.  But let's step back from that for a moment and return to the issue of music history and its relevance to this issue.  In particular, in response to this statement from Aniol:

Third, you are making a very common category error in these discussions. I agree completely, of course, that whatever God creates is good. God created music. God created meat. These things are good.
But God did not create rap. People did. For that matter, God did not create Gregorian chant, German chorales, Appalachian folk tunes, country western, jazz, or rock ‘n’ roll. People did. And because these are all human communication, they are moral.
It is very dangerous to ascribe to God something that he did not make.

 This is a difficult area because it's understandable that sinful things have arisen from the minds and desires of man, twisted as they are by our innate brokenness.  And I certainly understand his wariness and resistance towards music that are not part of the traditional realm of church.  But I disagree vehemently that God did not create those forms of music.  God did not simply create the realm of sound and the rules and laws of physics that cause sound to come across to our ears in such a way that our brains recognize it as music.  God created sound in such a way, on purpose, that it would sound like thus and so when certain sounds come together, and perhaps more importantly He endowed us with the creativity to do with music what we do, and all of it in one way or another will eventually glorify God.

To be sure, rap has a very twisted and broken history.  But so does all music, and for the simple reason that it all comes from broken, sinful humans.  The church was the forefront of music development for a long time simply because for a period of time, they were funding a lot of its best and brightest.  One example: the oratorio style was developed in response to the church rejecting opera as an acceptable style for performance in churches.  But people who knew and understood the medium and wanted it to be used to glorify Christ got hold if it, removed the costumes and staging and cleaned up the subject matter, and bam: new style, church-approved.  Or for that matter, take a look at old-style gospel music like the aforementioned Bill Gaither*: look at its roots in blues and folk music, and you will find a lot of music that is not acceptable in church for its subject matter But people who loved Jesus and grew up with a history and culture in those forms of music began to use it for His name and created a new genre, one that rightfully for many people is regarded fondly and is stirring to their souls.

I'm not trying to write a hyper-accurate or detailed history here.  I simply want to make the point that I do not accept the presupposition that there is a thing that cannot be redeemed for the sake of Christ, because all things that are true belongs to Him.  Let me just head off the obvious argument right here: "Are you saying there can be Christian porn?"  Of course not.  That's because sex, like everything else, was created by God for a purpose, and porn is a twisting and abuse of that purpose into sinfulness. 

This is a tough subject to tackle because I want to give it the proper gravity it deserves, but I also don't want to go on and on since I don't think I'm that terribly interesting.  I will, however, pass you off to some gentlemen much more suited to speaking to this issue than myself, and I would encourage you to listen to the whole hour:


*There is nothing wrong with Bill Gaither, or liking Bill Gaither.  Please do not write me or comment saying "Stop making fun of Bill Gaither!" because I'm not.  Crikey.

Celebrity vs. accountability: the disconcerting case of Mark Driscoll

UPDATE to below: Wade Burleson makes the point I feel like I am trying to make here, though more eloquently and with some more details.  But you don't have to take my word for it.

I am someone who could be considered part of the generation of "de-churched, re-churched" believers--young men and women who grew up in church, fell out either wholly or in part as we became entranced by the real world, but then experienced God's call to truth and found ourselves transformed and back in church not simply because "that's what Mom and Dad did" but because we found ourselves in love with Jesus.  There is a list of preachers who find themselves at the forefront of this revival of sorts, three in particular that often come to mind and mention: John Piper, whose terminology inspires this blog title; Matt Chandler, my own pastor; and Mark Driscoll, whose Mars Hill Church began as an effort to preach the Gospel to Seattle, one of the most notoriously unchurched cities in America, and has grown to have campuses all over the western United States.  All three pastors are prolific speakers, and both Piper and Driscoll are prolific writers.*

But John Piper and Matt Chandler are missing one commonality with Mark Driscoll: they have not become the subject of notoriety or accusations regarding their behavior or personal character.

Strange Fire follow-up

Just as an aside from my last post, I wanted to share this link to John Piper's response to the Strange Fire conference. Not because I consider him the ultimate authority or anything, but because I feel like he has done a much better job than I did in explaining the hestitancy I have in putting myself in one camp or the other for this particular debate. I would recommend listening to all the podcasts listed.

Strange fire

Last week, the hubbub on Twitter and around the Christian blogosphere was John MacArthur's Strange Fire conference, which was dedicated to discussing the issue of, for lack of a better term, the charismatic movement and what MacArthur believes is an avalanche of false teaching that, to some extent, has begun to reach the mainstream of evangelical Christian teaching.  I am stuck in a position where, while I share many of his concerns about "charismania" and will absolutely call things like the prosperity gospel, the Word of Faith movement and phenomena like the "Toronto Blessing" and the "Brownsville Revival" unbiblical, I am not a cessationist like he is.  The best understanding of my position is probably the phrase "charismatic Calvinist"--I absolutely believe that the gifts of the Spirit continue to this day and I have not seen a convincing case made from Scripture that they have ceased, but I also believe strongly that they exist for precisely the same purposes they did in Scripture: to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ and bring others to repentance and salvation.

I grew up in a church that was extremely wary of anything even remotely charismatic (although on reflection, it was equally wary of anything remotely Calvinist), and after the Lord saw fit to pull me back in to Himself in 2007 I found myself in a place that was much more...exuberant than anything I was used to.  When I was a kid, the idea that someone would raise their hands in worship would have drawn stares and probably a talking-to from a deacon after service.  By contrast, at the Village people worshiped in such a way as they felt stirred their hearts for Christ. 

The humanist half-gospel

The new Catholic Pope Francis has been making a lot of waves in the news lately.  Certainly he's an interesting character to watch from the perspective of someone who rejects his authority to speak as he claims he can, with God's own words.  But he's said a lot of things that have people talking about how the church talks about its role in the world and about ministry--well, the Catholic church at least, but it bears discussing.  There's a couple of articles in particular I read that deserve responding to, especially in talking about issues of Christian doctrine, truth, and why Christians ought to both be actively doing good to those around them while unapologetically preaching the truth of the Gospel to a culture that rejects it angrily.

From the Daily Beast article:

Pope Francis used [the story of St. Francis renouncing his wealth] to assert that, like that first Francis, Christians have on too many clothes. We must “lay ourselves bare,” he said, and “divest ourselves from this worldliness: the spirit contrary to the spirit of the beatitudes, the spirit contrary to the spirit of Jesus.” He repeated this command to “strip ourselves” of worldliness several times and concluded with a flourish: “Spiritual worldliness kills! It kills the soul! It kills the Church!”

What a phrase: spiritual worldliness. How can something be at the same time worldly, and spiritual?  The answer is, it can’t, and Francis knows this well. He is slyly saying that our spirituality is often a farce, that the church has for years draped itself in clothes that masquerade as holy but are actually just earthly rags.

It’s not a stretch to think that Francis is pointing his finger across the ocean at so much of what has characterized American Christianity over the past 30 years.  The empty layers of denomination and doctrine that have little to do with grace. The gospels of health and wealth that stand in contradiction to the gospel of Christ. The political rhetoric and advocacy that claim the mantel of the eternal for decidedly temporal causes.

I don't know much about Joshua DuBois other than what it says in the "about the author" section at the end of the article, that he was an adviser to President Obama for religious affairs and that he has an African Methodist Episcopal background.  But he's saying a lot of good things here, right?  Both of them, actually, the Pope and DuBois.  So many people, especially in the West, exist in one of two states as regards spirituality: either they reject God entirely and opt for secularism, or they exist in some kind of spiritual state that looks to be about God but really is about getting what they want for themselves.  I've discussed this division in the past as it refers to this passage:

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.--1 Corinthians 1:20-25

But there's an issue here: the Pope calls us to give up "spiritual worldiness," though he doesn't really define that.  DuBois takes the step of trying to define it, and he points out some other issues within the church that detract from the Gospel, but he is left talking about the need for the church to...give up...something?  He ends the article with, "But if Christians can muster the courage to strip off false religion and stand clothed in grace alone, we might yet save the American church. Here’s hoping for a bit of Francis’s naked faith."  But the church, in America or elsewhere, was not established on humans building anything and it's not going to be "saved" by anything but God continuing to maintain His elect as He has throughout history.  But that rather major issue aside, they are scratching the surface of something true.  If they won't dig in all the way, though, what good is it?

The other article is by Lincoln Chafee, current governor of Rhode Island.  As expected, it's written in lots of pol-speak, but it touches the same concern on different issues of the day:

The first Jesuit to ascend to the papacy, Pope Francis recently told La Civiltà Cattolica, the Italian Jesuit journal, that too many people have become obsessed with gays, abortion and contraception. His vision of a more inclusive faith that does not discriminate against anyone is a conviction in which I believe the vast majority of Rhode Islanders and Americans share.

Pope Francis, by his actions and words, demonstrates that he is determined to eliminate the scourge of prejudice in our society and to renew our civic purpose as a people.

For too long, religious extremism has prevailed at the expense of our common human ties. In certain circles in America and countries around the world, there are those people who try to demean others as lesser based on their social standing, skin color or the person they love.

I question how, exactly, Chafee defines "eliminating religious extremism."   He talks about how the Pope has pushed the Catholic church to refocus on issues of service to the poor and social justice.  Again, nothing bad here, nothing to be against.  But does Chafee truly believe that to preach the Gospel is to stand against these things?  Does he believe that Jesus, in calling everyone to repent of their sinfulness and idolatry and follow Him, is promoting "religious extremism?"  He certainly wasn't very popular for such a message, even though it contained elements of both DuBois' and Chafee's statements.

Jesus did not come to bring a message of social justice; he did not come to simply call for an end to "spiritual worldiness" or to tell us to "stop being so obsessed with sin."  He brought the Gospel, the good news that starts off very badly.  Everyone everywhere that believes they are good enough, that they've done the right things or had the correct thoughts, is fooling themselves.  We begin our life in sin, and on our own even our best laid plans are only paths deeper into sinfulness.  But Jesus came with the message that with repentance from sins and faith in His sacrifice on the cross, His resurrection, and His status now as our eternal high priest who has made the atonement for everything, we have renewed life that continues beyond this earthly one.

Should we be giving up our attachment to worldly things?  Yes, but if we are not then turning to Christ from those things, what is there to gain from it?  Do we need to show love to those who struggle with sin of all kinds, no matter what it is.  Absolutely yes, and it's also true that many Christians do not do a good job of showing mercy to those who struggle with sins different from their own.  But at the same time, we do not commit an act of love in any sense of completeness if it does not involve sharing that same message of repentance and grace in the cross.  Grace is not simply "come on in, the water's fine," it is "come over here, there is room here at the foot of the cross for you as well."

DuBois and Chafee together with the Pope they are discussing cover the parts of the gospel people want to hear--the part that lets them do enough to be good and to look down on those who don't do as they are doing.  But all three of them are leaving out the parts that are truly life-giving and -transforming, because they involve turning aside from worshiping our own desires.  Being able to acknowledge aspects of truth is good...but it's also dangerous, because it means there is no excuse for not acknowledging all of it.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.--Romans 1:18-25