CRISES

HELPING THE NEEDY AND AFFLICTED, AND EVANGELISM

Recently many of us have responded to appeals to help Israeli charities.  These charities provide emergency care for hundreds of thousands of Israeli families living in bomb shelters, and for those whose homes and businesses have been destroyed. 

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For some, that raises the old question: "Should we put our money and efforts into 'doing good' or into evangelistic efforts?"  The answer has to be "Yes".  It is best to do both.

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It is a centuries-old argument among Christians.  Is evangelism more important than helping the needy and afflicted?  Or is giving them help more important than telling them about the good news of the gospel?  Where should we come down between these two positions, seemingly at opposite poles?

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In fact, what about all the other questions about the needy and afflicted?  Is helping them even commanded by God?  If so, what is the Christian way to do it? 

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These questions are urgent.  Still, I would like to take a pass on all them!  Even though I have written a book on many of them.*  And even though I have started and run charities that helped some thousands of needy people and have preached about this to some other thousands. But I still want a pass for now.  Instead, another matter concerning them and the gospel needs to be confronted.

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The fact is, when Christians help the needy and afflicted, they shrink what scripture calls “the offense of the gospel.”  Often we forget, but the gospel carries an offense.  Plainly said, it offends people!  It offends those who hear it.  It even, God help us, offends us to tell others about it, at least until we do it enough that we notice less.

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How can it be that such good news as the gospel would offend people?  Let me count the ways.

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One is that people who try to be strong and independent are easily offended by the gospel.  That is because it says that none of us will be able to save ourselves by our own efforts, no matter how hard we try.  That's offensive!  Aren’t we supposed to take care of ourselves and not be dependent on anyone else? 

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A big one is that Christians are supposed to live by a set of rules.  And they sure look like party-pooping, bust-your-bubble, never-have-any-fun rules.  Surely God does not expect anyone actually to live like that!  Are you serious?  What is he anyhow, some kind of control-freak?  First, very few people would ever give anyone that much control over their lives.  And second, if they did, it would never be to anyone who wanted them to live like that.

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Another is that religion is thought to be no more than superstition, probably by a constantly growing number of people.  They think science has disproved it.

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Another is the damage that being a Christian can to do to your reputation and your prospects.  You would lose respect.  Seriously.  It is true.  It could hurt your career.  That is true too.  You can get sneered at.  Laughed at. Ignored. Dismissed.  Become invisible at important times and places. Fired.  Kicked out of your family.  Scorned.  Passed over. Vandalized. Hated. Attacked.  Even persecuted or killed, depending on where you are and when.  All true.

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Then, when people have another religion, they have additional, strong reasons to object to hearing the gospel.

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No wonder people can get offended, even hostile, when some batty Christian thinks they might be a candidate for becoming as stupid and wrong as they think Christians are.  And no wonder Christians inwardly shudder – no matter how much they may deny it or say that no, it is really something else that stops them – when the time comes to help save the life of the go-ahead-make-my-day unbeliever somewhere near them.

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Surely we can agree that there is an offense to the gospel.  Yet there are a couple of ways to shrink that offense.  One is to live out the gospel.  That alone – let’s face it – very seldom brings people to Christ.  But it keeps us from driving them away.  When they see us not living out the gospel, they are quick to spot us as hypocrites and to turn even further away.  It is a case of “See, I thought so.”

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The other way is helping the needy and afflicted.  Now, quick, before someone else brings it up – no, that does not mean Christians should help them as a propaganda ploy.  That without really caring about their needs, we should use them just to help convert others.  Certainly not!  That would be offensive to God.

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But when Christians give real, truly compassionate help to the needy and afflicted, and are seen doing so, it does soften the offense of the gospel.  It does help correct the public image of Christianity.  It does show, better than words, that contrary to all the horrible, untrue images of Christianity, there are other, nobler, loving and truly admirable marks of a Christian.  It does make many stop and think.  Many revise their views when they see the love of Christ made so visible by action.  Many are more ready to give Christianity another look, even a hearing.

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Remember in the “Sermon on the Mount”, how Christ said, “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your GOOD WORKS, and glorify your father which is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16)

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As it turns out, what helps us get an audience for the gospel is not our resume, or achievements, or personality, or wonderful way of talking about the gospel that causes our light to shine so that people will glorify God.  No, it is our good works!

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What qualifies as good works?  The Bible describes them as helping the poor, the afflicted, the broken-hearted and the oppressed.  (Look at the Old Testament version of Matthew 25, in Isaiah 58:6-12; or Isaiah 61:1-2 or Luke 4:18-19, Jesus’ first recorded sermon.)  When others see Christians doing these things, they begin to look at Christianity differently.  And they become more likely to glorify, not us, but God.  All that helps lessen the offense of the gospel. Then people are more likely to be open to hearing the gospel, and to accepting Christ when they do.

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Good works alone can never substitute for hearing the gospel.  But they often help get it a hearing.

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* "Up and Out", all of which is posted online at www.gerrycharlottephelps.com, with chapters listed in the left-hand column.

NO EVANGELIZING, NO EUROPE

Europe is dying.  Many European historians expect it to be gone by around 2025.  The CIA says by 2020.  Eurabia is fast approaching, with Sharia law instead of democracy.

Mark Steyn, in "It's the Demography, Stupid," says, "...Europe by the end of this century will be a continent after a neutron bomb:  The grand buildings will still be standing, but the people who built them will be gone."

What happened?  Europeans (and most developed countries) had too few children for too long.  It takes 2.1 children per woman for a generation merely to replace itself.  But Steyn lists Western birthrates per woman as:

United States 2.07, Ireland 1.87, New Zealand 1.79, Australia 1.76, Canada 1.5, Germany and Austria 1.3, Russia and Italy 1.2, Spain 1.1, adding:

"That's to say, Spain's population is halving every generation.  By 2050, Italy's population will have fallen by 22%, Bulgaria's by 36%, Estonia's by 52%."

Further, "We're pretty much awash in resources, but we're running out of people - the one truly indispensable resource, without which none of the others matter."

"Russia's the most obvious example: it's the largest country on earth, it's full of natural resources, and yet it's dying - its population is falling calamitously."

The developed world declined from 30% of global population in 1970 to 20% in 2000, while the Muslim world grew from 15% to 20%.  Muslim birthrates were at least double Western birthrates.

Declining Europe has long had to import migrants to have enough workers, including at least 20 million Muslims.  As Europe shrinks more, it will need still more immigrants.  But Europe does not much try to assimilate them, and they do not much want to be assimilated.  The Muslims tend to live in their own enclaves.  There, in effect, they rule, they practice Sharia law, and they wait.  They will be a majority before long.  Then they will win control of Europe.

How did Europe start downward?  Like the U.S, it was with the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s.  Theirs was bigger and stronger than ours; more Marxist, more secular, more violent, more hedonistic and even more selfishly focused on "me" than here.  In France, student rioters actually took over the nation for days.  Their "progressive" agenda grew more powerful than here.  Steyn says of the result that:

"The progressive agenda - lavish social welfare, abortion, secularism, multiculturalism - is the real suicide bomb."

That lavish social welfare system, together with over-powerful unions, has resulted in unemployment rates above 10% and almost no economic growth.  That keeps them from "spending their way out" of their economic and other problems.

The Sexual Revolution and the selfish focus on "me" resulted in children not being wanted.  Children were viewed as getting in the way, deterring careers, limiting the freedom and pleasures of potential parents and costing too much.  (Now, late, we are all learning what it costs not to have children!)  So by abortion and other means, European "Boomers" chose to have few or no children.

Their multiculturalism - even more extreme than ours - has kept them from interacting realistically with their immigrant populations.  Worse, many Europeans feel real snobbery toward non-Europeans.  They find so many ways to keep immigrants out of the paths to advancement that almost no immigrants - not even of the second or third generations - are to be found in the upper reaches of government or business, especially in France.

European secularism - their disbelief in God - has left them without the inner resources to confront the religious zeal of the Muslims who are on the road to replacing them.  Islam is the fastest-growing religion in Europe.  There are now more mosques than churches, with more people in attendance.

What could save Europe?  Only turning away from what is bringing them to extinction: the 1960s Cultural Revolution - with its Sexual Revolution's disdain for having children and its "me" focus on hedonism, its bloated welfare states and its secularism.

That would take changing hearts and minds, massively and in just a few years.  Who could accomplish such a thing?  Only Christ.  But since Europeans look down on everything religious, re-introducing them to Christ would not be easy.

Still, we ought to hear the cry of Niall Ferguson, famed Brit historian now teaching at Harvard and an atheist.  After the London subway bombings, Ferguson wrote in The Telegraph on 7-31-05 that somehow, England must be re-Christianized, in order to continue to exist.  If such an illustrious, brilliant atheist can figure out that "No Christianity, No England," can't we see that too?

"No Europe" would mean many kinds of disaster for us, the rest of the West. and for democracy.  As much as Europe antagonizes us, we need Europe.  "No evangelism, No Europe" is grievously true.  Europe may have only a 15-25 year window to turn back from the brink.  We need to take up this evangelism challenge with real speed and focus, figure out how to get started, then go.

Europe is the most urgent new field for evangelism we have ever faced.  We can ignore that only at our very great peril.   

WHY PEOPLE BECOME UNCHURCHED

Don Batten writes (hat tip to Jeffrey Foxmore):

"Churchgoing in Britain is in freefall in the 'mainline' denominations...This realization led to a survey in 2003/2004 to find out why.  In all, 14,000 people in Britain and Ireland responded...to say why they were giving up on church."

They wrote their responses instead of replying to  a question and answer format.  But 91% of them said roughly the same thing:

"'The church needs to give a more robust defense of the reasons for believing.' People pleaded for the churches to answer the sceptics and defend the faith...Respondents wanted evidence for their faith and teaching that upheld the authority of the Bible."

"The second reason for disillusionment was frustration with church leaders not teaching the holiness of God and moral standards.  A huge number of respondents grieved over the ordination of homosexuals by the Anglican Church."

"Research in Australia also shows that issues of truth and moral standards are very important in people seeing church as irrelevant."

Batten also notes that:

"People in the United States are also deserting the 'mainstream' denominations that have become infected with liberal theology.  The liberal churches are dying and the conservative (Bible-believing) churches are growing."

A lot of pastors and church workers would be surprised to learn that people are leaving churches because they do not defend the faith well enough.  That is, they do not hear enough good apologetics!  They would also find it hard to believe that what people are looking for is stricter moral teachings.  But a survey of 14,000 is about 14 times as big a sample as most pollsters would consider necessary.  The bigger the sample, the higher the degree of accuracy.  That means these findings would be considered to have a high degree of accuracy.

Should we be listening?

Battling for the Bible

The  November 18 post, 5 posts below this one, "Is the New Testament True?" received the following comment.  With the writer's permission, I am copying it here, together with my response.  The reason is that there are probably thousands of seminarians all over the country, especially those of the mainline churches, who would echo the frustration of this one.  If my response, below, was helpful to him, it might also be to other seminarians.  He commented:

"In seminary, I'm hearing a lot of stuff about the NT authorship being fraudulent. But even secular scholarship, I think, would dismiss most of the arguments that I've encountered so far."

I responded as follows:

Dear John,

Do you mean the seminary I think you do? I'm astonished! How can that be? But I take your word for it. (I really doubt, though, that the leaders of your seminary are aware of the situation.)

In my very liberal seminary, I was assisted by my skepticism (which I treasure) and my scientific training. The basics of that training were:

1. Check the basic, underlying assumptions of every argument or case. (If these are shaky, the whole superstructure of proofs and argumentation built on it is also shaky.) If these underlying assumptions are not openly stated, then you must figure out what they are.

2. Check the scholarship used in that superstructure.

Using these tools, I found that their case that the Bible is not true was in fact a weak case. (Actually, the case that the Bible is true, even in its plain surface meaning, is a somewhat stronger case.)

1. First, their basic, underlying assumption is "there is no supernatural."

Based on that, there can therefore be no true prophecies. So if some prophecy came true, it had to be fradulent in some way. (Thus the rationale for the claim that Isaiah was written by Christians after the prophecies came true, then falsely "backdated" to make them seem credible. Of course, finding that the pre-Christian Dead Sea Scrolls had an Isaiah identical to ours messed up their "backdating" theory pretty badly. Etc, etc.)

If everything considered to be supernatural is automatically ruled to be impossible, then there is also no virgin birth, no incarnation, no healings and no resurrection. Which means the authors of the Gospel had to be wrong.

So you can see what difference their basic assumption that "no supernatural exists" makes. They automatically rule out anything as true that is supernatural.

But assuming there is no supernatural proves nothing about the supernatural. In fact, it puts them in an almost indefensible position. Their chances of ever proving it are almost zero, as you can almost never prove a negative.

And this case is vulnerable to being flatly disproved by the existence of even ONE verifiably supernatural event. (The "white crow" argument - all it takes to disprove the argument that there are no white crows is just one. Not a majority being white, just one.)

2. Then as to their scholarship, compared to my own field of economics, I found the scholarship, in the superstructure built on that basic assumption, to be dismayingly sloppy. (And economics is not even as rigorous as, say, the physical sciences.)

Here is the worst device I found, over and over, even in the basic works of their best scholars. At first, I marked in blue pencil each paragraph where I found it. But soon I stopped, because I was marking up so much of so many of their library books!

The device was this: in one paragraph, things would be conditional, then in the next paragraph, what was tentative and conditional before suddenly became a certainty!

I was so stunned that at first I spent a lot of time re-reading, going back and forth between the two, not able to believe that they had really done that. But they did.

For instance, the first paragraph would state, "so-and-so, which SUGGESTS thus-and-so." Then not long after, suddenly it was "so and-so, THEREFORE thus-and-so," with what had merely been suggested before suddenly becoming a firm conclusion.

This kind of overstated conclusion based on what is merely tentative is just not permissible. Neither are conclusions to be based on evidence too slender to support them.

Just keep your eyes and ears open. You don't have to announce to your prof any disagreements you may have with him or her. That is your business.

They can rightfully expect you to learn what they want you to learn. You don't have to believe it.

They also have a right to ask you to regurgitate it, to prove you learned it. But you can do that in a way that does not make a statement about your beliefs, simply by citing the sources in which their arguments are found.

Be critical. Cultivate your scholarly skills and skepticism. Make them prove their case to you (not by challenging their authority openly in class, but rather by paying careful attention.)

And make those "A's". You may need them someday!

Your beliefs are in a much stronger position than you may realize.

Try Roberts. I think it will be very helpful.

Blessings,
Gerry

NO EVANGELIZING, NO U.S.A.

This is not one of those "stop sinning or God will destroy us" cries.  Rather (with me wearing both my 'economist' and 'poverty-expert' hats) it outlines the downward national path resulting from long-term disobedience to certain of God's commands.  Actually, no supernatural judgement at all is needed to hurry along the process of decline.  We can manage to keep rushing it along all by ourselves, with no need for additional pushing whatsoever from God, thank you very much.

The gist of the argument is: that some of our sins will destroy the nation, in easily foreseeable ways.  That is, unless we turn away from those particular sins. That we shall need God's supernatural help to achieve such difficult turns.  That such help cannot come without our becoming good disciples.  That discipleship is not possible without the new birth, followed by the resulting indwelling of God's Holy Spirit.  And that being born anew, by enough people and soon enough to turn the tide of decline, calls for an awful lot of good, effective evangelism.  Very soon. 

That's it.  The chain of reasoning is a little long - around 6 steps - but pretty simple. 

OK.  But - what downward national path?  You hadn't noticed?  Well, the one easily shown by good, clear statistics plus innumerable scholarly studies over the last couple of decades.  That one.  The one which can be previewed by viewing Europe today, since they have "progressed" down a similar path further than we have.  (But Europe can wait until my next post.)

The period 1960-2005 could be described as our "National Time of Trouble."  Other periods could also be so described.  But this one is of that most dangerous kind that could lead to prolonged national suicide.  Only once before, when we faced the slavery issue, were we also in a situation where we had to change ourselves or continue on a path that could lead to national self-destruction.  We changed, but with a cost of half a million deaths.  Changing ourselves this time, fortunately, should not be costly in terms of deaths.  But it is, and will continue to be, costly to many of us.

Where are we headed?  Toward a steep, continuing loss of national income and wealth.  Such losses would weaken our military, and our ability to defend against attackers and invaders, such as the aggressively expansionist Islamofacists already pushing for a new Caliphate, already talking of territory now belonging to Europe and others.

Toward a greatly destabilized world, if the U.S. loses its prosperity-based military ability to police the world's worst-case threats.  There is no conceivable replacement for the U.S. protective role in the world.  Absent a strong U.S., situations would deteriorate rapidly world-wide, greatly affecting economies, globalization, the defense of nations, and everything else.

Why would we have such a loss of national income and wealth?  Succinctly, because we have had too few births for the last 30 years.  What difference does that make?  Again, a good look at Europe would help explain.

First, we can no longer avoid the fact that all retirement plans - including Social Security as well as other pension plans - will fail unless the oncoming generation is at least as big as the retiring one.  That is, the retiring generation must at least have replaced itself if it hopes to have retirement income.  If not, there will be too few workers per retiree to support the retirees.

The size of that replacement generation is an immovable limit on the size incomes retired people can have.  The bigger the replacement generation, the more retirement income is possible; the smaller, the less is possible. 

When the replacement generation is smaller than the retiring generation, as it is now (though less so than in Europe), all kinds of problems and instability can be expected.  The replacement generation will carry an incredible tax burden to support the oldsters.  They well might rebell.  What would happen to the retired generation then?  Perhaps more important, what would it do to the replacement generation to come to that point?  When they might have to choose between supporting the oldsters or their own youngsters?  What would such choices mean to them?  Or do to them?  And to civilization itself?

But the problem of supporting dependent oldsters is only a facet of the main problem: a shrinking population.  This is about much more than Social Security or "What to do about Granny."  A steadily shrinking population also means too few workers even to support "everything as it is now."  Even to continue our current prosperity or eventually, anything close to it.  That can only spell decline, for the nation and individuals.  Historically, no nation can long survive a continuous decline in population.

Now to look at the causes of future national decline.  First, why did we have too few births?  In one word, abortion.[1]  The number aborted in the U.S. over the past 30 years would be around 40 million, almost the exact number needed to provide population growth at an at-least replacement level.  (The U.S. population grew almost entirely through immigration during this time, with a national birth rate below the replacement rate.) 

Next, why so many abortions?  in two words, the "Sexual Revolution."  Starting in the 1960s, the push toward "free sex" or sex outside of marriage, changed age-old practices.  The sudden, enormous increase in unmarried sex caused a huge increase in illegitimate births, which soared from just 5% in 1960 to 33% in 2000.  Unmarried sex was also the proximate cause of most abortions, since the great majority of abortions have been to unmarried women.

So it is beyond obvious that the Sexual Revolution is the proximate cause of our very dangerous future national decline.  More immediately, it is also the cause of our present national decline.  What present national decline?

Just this.  The Sexual Revolution has also caused an epidemic of fatherless children.  And why does that even matter?  Because we now know - a little late - that fatherlessness is the major predictor of most poverty, since most of the poor are unmarried mothers and their children.  Fatherlessness is also the major predictor of most violent crime, since 70% of the most violent young offenders are fatherless.[2]  This helps explain the more than 300% explosion in crime rates since 1960. 

The Sexual Revolution is also responsible for soaring divorce rates and the almost-matching teen suicide rates.  Also for the well-documented child pathologies of every kind which are suffered by fatherless children, at rates several times higher than those of children from two-parent families.  For the growing replacement of marriage by cohabitation.  And on and on.

What could alter such national sexual habits which have run for over 40 years?  Especially in an area as powerful and contentious as sex?  Only Christ.  God did not bring us to this brink.  We took care of that ourselves.  But only God, through Christ, can help people make the enormously difficult changes needed to bring us back.  Such changes cannot be dictated or legislated.  They can come only person by person.

These kinds of profound behaviorial changes, on a nation-wide scale, can come only through conversion, followed by a life-long struggle to be obedient to God's commands - what we call discipleship.

We are used to thinking of evangelism as needed for the eternal salvation of souls.  We must also recognize an additional powerful motive for evangelism.  It is the only thing possible that can also save nations and civilizations in decline.  It alone can avoid a resurgence of barbarism and darkness, on this earth and in our lifetimes.  And it alone can bring this nation through its present "time of troubles."  Nothing else - not even the highest of high tech and human genius - can possibly do it.

As never before, we need to evangelize.  And to make haste.

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[1] Beware the misleading term "fertility rates" when viewing statistics on population growth or decline.  They have nothing to do with fertility.  They do not measure fertility (the number of conceptions per unit of population), but only the number of births.  For example, babies conceived but aborted would not be counted at all.  Conception rates (fertility) are not what is being measured.

[2] Fatherlessness (or absent or rejecting fathers, as well as over-binding mothers) is also a factor found in the lives of most male homosexuals (though most psychologists stopped talking about such things years ago.) 

See Hatterer, Lawrence J., M.D., Changing Homosexuality in the Male: Treatment for Men Troubled by Homosexuality, 1970, McGraw-Hill, p. 61.

Also, Masters and Johnson, Sex and Human Loving, 1982, Little, Brown & Co., pp. 351-352.

Also, Vitz, Paul C., Professor Emeritus of Psychology, NY University, "Family Decline: The Findings of Social Science, Part I," under "The Importance of Fathers," in Defending the Family: A Sourcebook, 1-23, Steubenville, OH: The Catholic Social Science Press, 1998, also at http://catholiceducation.org/articles/marriage/mf0002.html.

Sexual Preferences and Christian Living

The final ruling upholding the defrocking of Rev. Beth Stroud has come.  She is no longer allowed to be a minister of the United Methodist Church.  The controversy began about a year ago when she announced, to the church where she was serving as an associate pastor, that she was living in a committed homosexual relationship with another woman. 

Since the decision ending the case, however, the surrounding controversy has not cooled and is still raging, not only in the UMC but also in the blogosphere.  (See Shane Raynor’s excellent blog at www.wesleyblog.com for good background on this story.  Glance at the comments on his articles too, for an idea of the general debate.)

What about this issue?  Should openly practicing homosexuals be ordained in the UMC?  May they sometimes be excluded even from membership?  (The UMC also just upheld the right of a pastor, Ed Johnson, to deny membership in his church to an openly gay man.)

The arguments of the pro-gay side seem to focus on the harm done them by any exclusion or criticism and how much they suffer as a result.  They argue that such discrimination goes against important parts of scripture and the teachings of Christ and the church.  They also argue that any inclusion of gays in the church that falls short of full ordination, and of full assurance to gays that their lifestyle is fully Biblical, normal and accepted, is hateful and must be rejected as amounting to no acceptance at all, and no love at all.

The opposing arguments come mostly from those who believe scripture is true and is inspired by God.  They point out that everywhere homosexuality is mentioned in scripture, it is strongly condemned, even called an “abomination” in places.  They believe scripture leaves no room whatsoever for accepting homosexual practice. 

Most of these, however, also argue for loving homosexuals (“loving the sinner but not the sin.”)  They also admit we are all sinners, and that there are many scriptural sins – even those designated as “abominations” – besides homosexuality.

At base, the argument about homosexuality is an argument about the scriptures.  Are they true?  Are they the word of God?  The standard beside which all other claims are to be judged?  Or are they only partly true, only possibly the word of God and may we appeal to other, more current standards when scripture seems too harsh?

My response is two-fold.  First, homosexuals are not the only ones called upon by scripture not to do what they desire to do sexually.  Homosexuality – sex between persons of the same gender - is not the only sexual practice forbidden in scripture.  Other forbidden sexual practices include all fornication (sex outside marriage), all adultery (sex with anyone other than one’s spouse), sex between various relatives, sex with animals, sex with dead people and rape – which is sex imposed on someone who is unwilling.

The gay camp will speedily cry that this is an attempt to equate homosexuals with those who practice any of the above.  But no equality or similarity between any of the above is suggested in scripture, except the equality of being forbidden sins. 

Does the fact that someone has an exclusive sexual preference for any of these scripturally forbidden practices make a difference?  Does that provide an excuse, an exclusion from being wrong, when they follow such preferences into the practice of them?

The scriptural answer is that we are to refrain from any such practices, regardless of what our desires might be.  What if that means that we then have no sex lives at all?  Currently, that would be thought of as an unacceptable, impossible standard.  But we expect it every day.

If someone’s sexual preference is for rape, for instance, we expect them to deny themselves what they desire.  If their only alternative choice is to have no sex at all, we still expect them to deny themselves what they desire, notwithstanding.

If someone wants to be married, for instance, but does not find anyone to marry, must they then live without having sex with anyone?  The scripture says so. 

Is living without sexual relations acceptable?  Probably a majority would not think so.  Yet there are many who do so in fact, whether or not by choice.  Are their lives always twisted as a result?  Can celibacy ever be healthy, mentally, emotionally or physically?  Some of us have known celibate people who have been remarkably healthy, mentally, emotionally and physically, so it must be possible.

But are these even the right questions?  If God commands something, are those of us who belong to him not expected to do it, whatever we think about it?  In fact, we are, whether we think it will make us happy or not.

All this brings us bang up against the paradox of the Christian life.  Christ said we must “lose our lives to save them.”  We are to obey God, even at the cost of torture or death.  Yet it is also true that doing what we want instead of what God wants, in pursuit of our own happiness, does not make us happy – at least, not for long.  And also true that doing what God wants, even against our own desires, sexual or otherwise, is the only way to real contentment in this life.

Practicing homosexuals make a basic mistake.  They suffer, and blame it on any lack of acceptance by other people.  Other people see their suffering, have pity on them, and try to comfort them by accepting them.  But their happiness does not really depend on other people, or on being accepted by other people.  It depends upon God.  Ultimately, it depends on God alone.

It is not possible to be truly, lastingly happy or contented apart from God and doing God’s will.  Making the attempt only prolongs our suffering.  As C.S. Lewis said, when we finally surrender our will to God’s will, it is “as if a bone had been set in the universe.”  Things finally begin to fit together as they were designed to fit.  Healing from spiritual suffering (which is the most awful of all kinds) begins.  We find strength to do what we once thought impossible, not to mention repulsive.  And we find the contentment that comes only from living inside the will of God, to the best of our ability.

What is needed is not to focus so much on trying to soften the emotional suffering of a group of people, but to stick to the basic plan: point them to the one and only way out of their sufferings.  It does not lie in trying to change or counter the commandments of God.  Rather, it lies in ending our rebellion against them, laying down the flag and handing over the sword. The unexpected, beyond-belief result of such surrender to God is always profound contentment, far above and beyond anything we gave up. 

God is faithful.  We can count on that.   Anyplace inside his will is better than anyplace outside it, no matter how terrible it may seem at first; and anyplace outside his will is worse than anyplace inside it, no matter how attractive it may seem at first.  We can count on that too.  That is how he designed us, how we fit into the universe he made.

Disciples Don't Cohabit

Cohabitation is almost as common as marriage now.  In fact, it is hard to remember a marriage I performed in recent years where the couple was not already living together. 

Cohabitation makes sense to a lot of young couples.  Many, perhaps most, have seen their parents divorce.  Some consider it a "trial marriage," hoping to avoid divorce by not marrying if they turn out to be incompatible.  Furthermore, "everybody is doing it," which seems to argue that it must be OK.  Besides, postponing all sex until marriage, when sex drives are strong for years before the age when most marry, does not seem to make sense.  Is it even normal?  Why should people deny themselves something as natural as sex?  If "no one gets hurt," or if both are consenting, so that if someone does get hurt, they have already agreed to take that risk, then what is the problem?

If anything is wrong with sex outside of marriage, is it only because it goes against Christian teachings?  Except for that, doesn't it make sense?  In other words, outside of religion, are there any good reasons not to cohabit?  Actually, there are.

First, the personal happiness and well-being of cohabiting couples are statistically at higher risk than that of married people. 

Couples who cohabit, then marry, are 50% more likely to divorce than couples who did not cohabit before marrying! [1]   The opposite of what might be expected, but well documented and true. 

Also, 40% of couples who cohabit do not eventually marry each other.  That might seem to avoid the grief of divorce.  But the fact is that when they break up, they still go through all the pain of divorce, just as if they had formally married.  They only avoid the form of divorce, not the disaster part.  (And with 'palimony,' they may not even avoid the financial costs of divorce!)

The rates of physical partner abuse are over 6000% (62 times) greater in cohabitation than in marriage.  The rates of physical and sexual abuse of children are also much higher than in marriage.  Cohabiting couples are less healthy and have shorter lives than married couples.  They are less prosperous, as a group.  And - unkindest of all - both male and female partners report being less happy, and - having less sex, even less-satisfying sex - than married couples do!  So the search for better and more sex - the elephant in the room in all this argument - fares worse in unmarried sex than in married sex!

On the basis of our purely personal gratification, then, unmarried sex scores far below married sex.  On a purely objective, well-documented basis,  ignoring any religious reasons to wait for sex until marriage, the disadvantages of cohabitation are far greater than any advantages.

Why would this be?  One factor is the element of trust.  How can there a truly satisfying relationship when both know that either might leave at any time for any reason?  How can there be any depth in the relationship without trust?  And how can there be trust without commitment?  Statistically, only marriage brings the level of commitment needed for a happier relationship.

Second, wide-spread unmarried sex ruins countries.

Anyone who claims to care for their country, for the poor or about children, and who also has unmarried sex, is actively harming, not helping, all of these.  That is because It turns out that unmarried sex by a large part of the population is one of the most disasterous things that can happen to a country.  Why is that?  And how do we know?

Because we now know that fatherlessness is the motor driving most poverty and most violent crime.  Because fatherlessness has increased from 5% of all births in 1960 to 33% in 2000.  And because unmarried sex, since the "Sexual Revolution" of the 1960s, has been the motor driving fatherlessness.  (Leaving aside that unmarried sex is also the proximate cause of most abortions.)

How do we know?  Fatherlessness is the major predictor of poverty, since most of the poor are never-married mothers and their children.  Fatherlessness has also become the major predictor of violent crime, as 70% of the most violent young offenders in prison are fatherless.

And these are just the secular, non-religious reasons for postponing sex until marriage.  What are the religious reasons for denying sex to ourselves until we marry? 

The Bible is clear that there is to be no sex outside marriage.  That if two single people have sex, they must marry.  These strictures may be a major reason for the drive to prove the Bible is not true, or at least, not totally true!  But there is no question that this is the standard shown by the plain sense of the scripture.

And who is a disciple?  The one who is trying hard to obey Christ.  Can disciples then have sex outside marriage?  Or cohabit instead of marrying?  Only if they repent and change their ways.

In short, the choice is to be a disciple or to cohabit (or continue to cohabit.)  But doing both at the same time is not possible.  Cohabiting Christians who also want to follow Christ need to understand, rethink and obey him.  He is the Lord of the sexual part of our lives as well as the rest. 

And obeying these commands is not as bad as it seems at first.  It will actually work out better.  Even when what God wants seems to be bad for us, we can trust that it is the only way that will work out well.  It is all part of trusting him, not only with our eternal souls, but with having the best possible life here on this earth as well. 

___________

[1]  For this and all other statistical documentation, please see the footnotes for Chapter 6, "Sex and Poverty" of "Up and Out: A Guide to True Compassion for the Poor", (under "Categories") either at www.gerrycharlottephelps.com or www.upandout.us.

[2] For cohabiting couples who repent and want to marry, most I have known wanted to wait to marry until they could have the big wedding they had dreamed about.  And while most decided to continue living together, determined to postpone any further sex until then, they found that did not work. 

One solution that worked for such repentant, cohabiting couples was a quiet, "private" wedding first, with just them, the pastor, whatever number of witnesses were legally required, and a properly executed wedding license.  That way, they continued to live together, married in the eyes of God and of the state, but "secretly" so far as others were concerned, until the big, public wedding of their dreams.  Not ideal, but it helped some of them achieve the obedience to Christ that they had chosen.  (There were many such "secret" weddings, or "elopements," for various reasons, as late as the 1940s.)

Some of the problems:  First, giving a bad witness to others, especially young people, by appearing to live together without being married, and thereby supporting the practice of cohabitation, even though actually married.  Second, fooling all those friends and family members into thinking the big wedding later was the real one.

Evangelism Would Profit From "Lifestyle Apologetics"

Evangelism is often thwarted by things people think but don’t talk about.  Or by things people assume about truth and reality that are so taken for granted that they are not questioned.  Apologetics grew out of the need to address such assumptions.

Apologetics – that is, the defense of the faith – has been the Christian weapon for defending itself from arguments against it.  In earlier times it focused its strength mostly against heresy, against such claims as that there is no God, or that if there is, he is not the Christian God, or that if he is the Christian God, he is a monster, certainly not worthy of being followed or obeyed. 

More recently, it has also focused on claims from outside the Christian faith.  These are primarily that the Bible is not true, that it has been disproved by science and that there is no supernatural, and no supernatural explanation for anything.  From within the faith, apologetics has focused on a supposed need to reconcile Christianity with science, on claims that the Bible has not been accurately transmitted to us, or that the Bible should not be taken at face-value and therefore God and his commands may be interpreted somewhat differently than plainly described in the Bible.

All such apologetics are arguments to assist people in choosing God and his son, Jesus Christ.  They have no other purpose or justification. That is, the primary purpose for apologetics is to support evangelism, discipling and the church.

Now an additional branch of apologetics is urgently needed.  That could be called “Lifestyle Apologetics.”  Such a new branch of apologetics must not only counter the supposed facts which are used to support attacks on the faith.  It must also consider the motives of those making the attacks, as well as the motives of those who would like to accept them.  It must think on how to bring to light, address and change these motives. 

To address these underlying, unstated motives, it must counter the unstated, wide-spread assumptions on which they are often based.  Some critical ones are that living a non-Christian life is more gratifying than a Christian life, and that living in a non-Christian nation is better than living in a Christian nation.  To do so, it must counter them not only intellectually, but also on a factual, historical, often statistical basis.

This calls for a new branch of apologetics, with its own thinkers, researchers, think-tanks, academics, writers and speakers.  First and promptly, it calls for pioneers to lay out the basics, find and gather information, think rigorously about it and use the results to argue well.

What is the immediate, urgent need for Lifestyle Apologetics in support of evangelism and discipling?  It is that motives for rejecting Christ and his commands are more powerful than ever.  It is that what we would have to give up now to follow Christ seems much bigger, less reasonable and more costly than ever.  It is also that we seem to have so little to gain by doing so, at least in this life.  And doing so solely for the next life seems less important than ever, because of the inroads made in even the belief in a next life.

What do we have to gain, in this life, by following Christ?  That question is the “elephant in the room” whenever any attempt is made to draw others to Christ.  The “health and wealth” preachers have their own answer.  But, aside from questions as to whether or not they are right, are there other reasons to believe that Christians are better off than non Christians, in this life, and despite any sufferings they might endure for being believers?  And can these reasons be substantiated?  Can they be supported intellectually, factually, historically and statistically against claims and assumptions that being a Christian is not only an unintelligent, illogical, science-defying way to live, but also an inferior and less satisfying, less beneficial way?

The answers to the last part lie in two directions.  First, the internal benefits Christianity brings, such as peace, resilience, joy, contentment in spite of circumstances, and strength adequate to whatever comes.  Second, the external benefits that come from obeying the commandments of God.  These external benefits can be supported factually and statistically for individuals.  They can be supported factually, historically and statistically for nations.

It can be shown that individuals do better and have better lives when they love God, love their neighbor, honor their parents, refrain from murder, theft, lying, adultery and fornication and envy.

It can also be shown that nations with a majority of such individuals have been those who have done the best.  The reasons are fairly obvious, although complex and in need of careful scholarship to discern and support them.  Much work has already been done.

If Lifestyle Apologetics becomes strong and its claims become widely known, it would be a huge support to evangelism, to discipling and to the church in every way.  It would even be a basis for a political argument that nations are best served and better off when people live by God’s commands, whether they believe in Christ, or indeed any god, at all.  It is actually true that people, and nations, that live by God’s laws automatically become better off.  It is therefore right and praiseworthy to support the faith, even for purely secular purposes and for purely secular individuals and nations!

For believers, there is an important question: should we try to attract people to Christ because of the benefits in this life?  Is that not to undercut the need to come to God out of love, simply because he first loved us?  Could it not also undermine the expectation that we will suffer for following Christ, and to be patient when we do?

That is a distinction worth making.  To address it, we would need to know what God thinks about it.  But since the Bible says of him that he is “full of pity” and “not willing that any should perish,” and since we often see how he accepts any who come, even when it is not for the purest of reasons, perhaps we can lean more toward pity and less toward exactness for purity of motive.

We must certainly try our best to use Lifestyle Apologetics in a way that explains that whatever the benefits in this life of being a Christian, there will still be suffering and loss.  But that with these come more than enough grace and strength to withstand them, and still have peace and joy in Christ that “surpasses all understanding.”  That whatever may come, God’s promise to us is that “all things work together for good to those who love the Lord.” So he assures us that he will turn every evil into ultimate good for each of us.

It is factually, literally true that the benefits of the Christian life-style, in this life alone, far outweigh the downside, both for individuals and for nations.  It is past time to make that case much more strongly and spread it much more widely.  Now is the right time for the birth of “Lifestyle Apologetics,” for the support of evangelism, discipling and the church.

Kenya to Stop Christian Evangelists

An urgent appeal for help has just arrived by email, from Shad Williams of 'We Go To Them', one of the most productive and fruitful ministries of our time. 

Over 5 million converts have resulted from this tiny, shoe-strinig ministry's 25 years in the field, especially in India and Africa.  Not only have they led hundreds of thousands of Africans to Christ in Kenya alone.  They also have trained many Kenyan pastors and evangelists, who have established of dozens of new Kenyan churches.  (See www.wegotothem.com)  Now their ministry in Kenya is being threatened.  The email says:

"The new government of Kenya enlisted a Muslim man to draft a new constitution, which will be voted on by the general population on November 21.  In it there is a clause which says it will no longer be legal for Christians to hold open-air meetings.  That would mean we would no longer be allowed to preach in the slums, in the streets, in the open-air markets and in our evening film shows.  The public-place field evangelism ministry in Kenya would be completely shut down - for us, as well as for the national (Kenyan) team.  Muslims, on the other hand, will be allowed to conduct public meetings for the purpose of propagating Islam."

Shad continues:

"The constitution has not even been voted on yet, and conflicts are already occurring between Muslims and Christians.  Last week, Ben (Kenyan pastor and evangelist) hosted a group of musicians from Arkansas.  They attempted to conduct open-air meetings, but were hindered from doing so by clashes between Muslims and Christians, which had to be put down by Kenyan military police.  Their evangelistic activity had to be confined to schools and churches."

He goes on:

"The response to the gospel is higher now than it has ever been before...The Muslims have been watching what we are doing and have learned our methodology...field evangelism...(it) is the mainstay of our ministry.  Most of the 5 million people who have come into the Kingdom of God through this ministry so far were reached in 'we go to them' field evangelism events - the kind of events that will cease to take place in Kenya if the new constitution is approved."

This is grossly unfair and anti-democratic.  In a democracy, there should be religious freedom.  Each religion should have the right to do everything they can to PERSUADE people to accept their religion.  (Not to scare them into it by killing them if they do not!)  That is what freedom of religion means.   It includes the freedom to try to persuade.  It also includes protection from being stopped from trying to persuade or being punished for doing so peacefully. 

Islam is making more and more of an effort to take over Africa.  That is their right.  But let them do it democratically, peacefully, fairly, not by trying to limit the rights of other religions to do the same by unfair and undemocratic laws.  And especially not by using force, riots, persecution, mutilations and slavery and killings and genocide (as in Sudan) and discrimination to win the competition.  Let them compete.  But let it be democratic, peaceful and fair.

All of us who do not want to see Africa succumb to Islamic rule, especially when so much of it aims at world domination and conquest, need to pay attention, right now.  This is the cutting edge.  The crucial time in this conflict of religions has arrived.  And more is involved than religion alone.  If Africa becomes officially Muslim, the war of radical Islamofacism well get longer, bloodier and more ferocious.

Most Americans would not want to dictate any country's religion.  But they want the people of every country to have the opportunity to choose freely what religion they will follow, without coercion of law, riots, mutilations or wars.

Africa is a continent of failed states.  Since it threw off colonialism after WWII, it has gone steadily downhill.  The people are poorer than before, and poorer every year.  The native governments who replaced the colonialists have almost all been corrupt dictators who have stolen everything, impoverished their people and established such anarchy that there is almost no rule of law.  It is ripe for a religion willing to convert by force and coercion.

And Africa is in play.  It could go with the democracies of the world.  But it is more likely to be taken over by Islamofacists, because it cannot protect itself from the force they are so willing to use, to convert and to rule.

Now is the time to help ministries like this one, who are on the front lines.  This is a struggle for the Christian faith.  But it is much more.  It is also on the cusp of the time we have left to rescue Africa from Islamofacism, until it can work its way toward responsibile freedom and true democracy.

For all these reasons, please pray!  Pray every day between now and November 21.  Give!  This ministry needs financial help to deal with this new situation.  And - Pay attention to Africa!  The war we are in with the Islamofacists will most likely involve more and more of Sub-Saharan Africa.  And sooner rather than later.  We have to stop ignoring it.

(You can read more, and give, at www.wegotothem.com.)

Post 9: Evangelize While the Ruts Are Open

Civilizations could not exist without our mental ruts.  We could not function without them.  Habits of thought are labor-saving, a way to do things routinely, without thinking.  They save us from thinking through everything, all over again, all the time.  They let us spend more time and effort on the things that matter.  They make us more effective.

Mental ruts, however, can get in the way of hearing and considering the gospel.  It can be heard better when people are out of their ruts.  Or when they at least pause in their ruts, look around and consider taking a different fork in the road.

How can we open those ruts?  One way is to get people into a different, isolated setting, like a retreat.  There, away from their other routines, they are less bound by their old habits of thinking.  The Emmaus Walk, for instance, where people are in retreat, has been a good way to bring them into a new or better walk with Christ. 

We know that one of the best places to bring a teen to Christ is at camp, away from old distractions and habits of thinking.  It is probably the best of all times for the camp counselor to have the long awaited one-on-one, where so many teens choose Christ.

Mental ruts are open at other times too.  We just don’t always see the opening.  God is always at work, opening those ruts. Our job is to offer the gospel, without knowing whether or not the person has been “opened” to hearing it.  Or whether we can “open” them ourselves, simply by letting them hear the gospel.

Many preachers have had this experience, but it was my first time.  After a sermon I was shaking hands at the door when a stranger said to me, “How did you know that about me?”  She was serious and obviously upset.  I hadn’t a clue as to what she meant.  “Know what?”  I wondered.  “You know!” she said.  “You were preaching straight at me!”  For a moment I was dumbfounded, mouth hanging open.  Then I got it.  “Oh, so you were the reason the Lord woke me up at 1:30 this morning and made me get a new sermon!”  I explained further that I never saw her before and knew nothing about her, but God did.  And that obviously he had planted a message in my sermon just for her, without my knowing anything about it.  And that I still did not know what it was.  But she did, and that was what mattered.

God made that opening.  He does it all the time.  We just usually never know it.  But when we present the gospel, whether in a sermon or a one-on-one conversation, we never do it alone.  God is working too, invisibly but powerfully.  Our part is to share the gospel, whether we see him working or not.

That is not all: when we simply ask people to make a decision about accepting Christ, that can open the ruts they are in.  They think about it.  They decide “No” or “Yes” or they pause.  They consider it.  It is at the front of their view.  It is one of those rare times they may consider leaving their ruts.   

That is why it is so important, not only to present the gospel, but to ask people to decide, right then, whether asking from the pulpit or face to face.  Just the asking opens those ruts a little.  It pauses the tape.  Some of them feel some pressure building inside.  Should they make this big change, or not?  If we do not ask them to decide, or if we stop at that point, they may stop too.  And not have such openness to God again for a long time.

So in addition to asking them to decide, it is important to give them an opportunity to show that they have decided, right then.  All kinds of outfits besides churches know this.  Charities know that when they send a letter asking for a donation, more people respond if there is an envelope enclosed, so they can respond right then.  When a presentation is made asking for volunteers, the response is much greater when there is an immediate way to sign up right then.  When someone wants to get married, someone has to ask.  And that asking brings about a decision, usually in a short time.  Simply asking for a decision opens ruts.  It causes people to consider.  And asking them to decide right then deepens the opening and helps them to choose.

This does not mean that every sermon has to be about evangelism, addressed just to seekers and ignoring the others.  Or that invitations should go on and on interminably.  But at some point in the service, it is important to confront people with choosing Christ, asking them to respond right then.  If invitation after invitation passes without response, that does not mean no one responded.  Ruts were opened simply by the asking.  Decisions for Christ were considered.  Seeds were planted for future watering and possibly harvest.  If they had not been asked to decide, many would not even have considered it.   Many who eventually respond were brought to that point by being asked over and over, struggling silently each time before they finally decided in favor of Christ.  Invitations open ruts.

Being asked one-on-one, if what someone wants is to accept Christ, also opens ruts.  Especially when the gospel is presented in a sensitive, well-structured way leading to the point of asking for a decision.  Just being asked to decide, in the right way, is very powerful.  That is why it is important to learn better ways to talk to people about Christ, and to get a lot of experience in doing it.  There is simply no other way that leads as many people to Christ in every-day, ordinary situations.

We have heard about those times when God’s Holy Spirit moves powerfully and masses of people come to Christ.  All who love God dream and pray for such times.  But even while we wait and pray, there can be steady streams of converts to Christ – people who in the course of ordinary Sundays or simple conversations are broken out of their ruts, consider Christ and accept him, simply because someone asked them to decide.  Asking opens ruts.

Whenever the ruts are open, evangelize!  And remember, just the simple sharing of the gospel itself can open the ruts.  While they are open, ask!  Ask them to decide, right then.  Right then is the best possible time.  Don’t let it go to waste.