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Canada Clint Global Society

The Best Article You’ll Read on Cultural Marxism

Like many people, I have been trying to learn more about the trends and philosophies that are blanketing society like a freezing blizzard of unbelief.

The search has lead me to find a surprising amount of consensus from different sources. On the one hand, I would expect to find Albert Mohler’s commentary ably exposing the latent philosophies which are opposed to a Christian worldview. Yet I’ve been surprised to find non-christian voices like Jordan Peterson, Douglas Murray, and many others making observations that resonate with elements of the Christian worldview.

Who would have thought a decade ago that the New Atheists would ever be siding with Christians. But now they both affirm the scientific verity of binary sexes, making them outlaws together! Darwinists and Christians together! These are strange days indeed.

The swirl of discussion centres around social justice, racism, sexism, class warfare, and the general ‘oikophobia‘, or disdain for one’s own oikos, household or country.

Although concern for equity is great in the Scriptures since God himself is called, Jehovah Tsidkenu, ‘The Lord Our Righteousness” (Jer 23:6), there is also the concern that mankind does not subvert God’s intent. It is easy for man to ascribe to himself the role of ultimate lawgiver, casting off the bonds of God’s law in favor of his own (cf. Psalm 2).

This casting off of the bonds of God is ably summarized in Robert Smith’s exposition of “cultural marxism”. His essay in Themelios is a rare combination of thorough background study, sound synthesis and a useful application to the leading issues of our own day.

Some observations about the article, as it relates to Cultural Marxism and Critical Theory:

The disdain for Western civilization

Smith writes regarding the Frankfurt school’s philosophy:

the general consensus of its members was that Western civilization was effectively responsible for all the manifestations of aggression, oppression, racism, slavery, classism and sexism that marked post-industrial society. Marcuse even went so far as to call democracy “the most efficient system of domination.”

3.4. Assessing the Work of the Frankfurt School

The philosophy of minority elitism aiming to suppress majorities

Smith quotes from Charles Taylor, the Canadian Roman Catholic philosopher:

“It is also profoundly elitist, for it ultimately forces Marcuse to see the majority of people “not as semi-rational human beings … but rather as irrational objects of manipulation … The majority must be liberated from themselves by the Marcusian minority which alone is rational.”

Smith, quoting Taylor fn 130, Charles Taylor, “Marcuse’s Authoritarian Utopia,” Canadian Dimension 7.3 (1970): 51.

The intent to undermine institutions based on Christian morality

Smith has a summary here:

While majoritarian systems always have the potential to become tyrannous, and the track-record of Western civilization is far from unblemished, to demonize the key elements and attainments of Western culture—e.g., Christian morality, family, hierarchy, loyalty, tradition, the rule of law, sexual restraint, universal suffrage, property rights, patriotism, capitalism, and technology—is both myopic and ungrateful. Furthermore, criticizing an imperfect system when you have no idea how to build a better one is more than idealistic; it is irresponsible. 

3.4. Assessing the Work of the Frankfurt School

Evaluation of philosophies impacting the contemporary scene

Smith summarizes:

Nevertheless, as ongoing interest in their work testifies,149 there is no denying that the first generation of the Frankfurt School (in general) and Marcuse (in particular) have played a significant role in shaping the contours of the current Western civilizational divide. Political correctness,150 the new intolerant-tolerance and ever-increasing erotic liberty are part of their legacy.151 Similarly, Gramsci’s ideas have also borne very real (and not particularly appetizing) fruit—not least in the arena of identity politics, intersectionality and the rise of victimhood culture (today’s versions of “class consciousness”), as well as in the fact that, in the fields of media and academia (and politics too), the “long march through the institutions” is virtually complete.152

4.1. Cultural Marxism: Fact or Fiction?

Being careful about using the Cultural Marxism label, yet without discarding it.

Smith cautions:

Given the existence of conspiratorial explanations of the nature and goals of Cultural Marxism, is there a case for avoiding the term and using an alternative (e.g., neo-Marxism or Critical Theory)? In my view, there is no inherent problem with the label, but Christians ought to be careful with how (and to whom) it is applied. 

4.3 This Calls for Wisdom

The structure of an alternative to God’s order (cf. ‘stoichea tou kosmou’ Gal. 4:3,9;Col. 2:8,20)

Here is the alternative structure which Smith points out:

For this reason, Marxism, whether in classical or cultural form, can be viewed as a corruption or parody of the gospel—replete with its own false prophet (Marx), false Bible (Das Kapital), false doctrine (dialectical materialism), false apostles (Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Marcuse), and false hope (a communist utopia).162 Therefore, the fact that Cultural Marxism is a real ideology making a real impact on our world is not good news.

4.3 This Calls For Wisdom

Speaking up, graciously but clearly

Smith quotes Albert Mohler:

While we have solid biblical reasons for seeing ourselves as “strangers and exiles on earth” (Heb 11:13), “we must not exile ourselves, and we certainly must not retreat into silence while we still have a platform, a voice, and an opportunity. We must remind ourselves again and again of the compassion of truth and the truth of compassion.”

fn 170, [170] R. Albert Mohler, We Cannot Be Silent: Speaking Truth to a Culture Redefining Sex, Marriage, and the Very Meaning of Right and Wrong (Nashville: Nelson, 2015), 151.

Closing thoughts

This article is long on philosophy, so it makes for technical reading. However, it is the kind of summary article which provides an introduction to the background of many cultural currents in the West today. The benefit of the article is that it finishes with Christian wisdom, highlighting the need to be charitable so as not to presume people’s motives, yet clear-thinking to apply biblical truth to “take every thought captive” (2 Cor 10:5).

Read the whole article here: Cultural Marxism: Imaginary Conspiracy or Revolutionary Reality?

Photo credit: Members of the Frankfurt School. Photograph taken in Heidelberg, April 1964,by Jeremy J. Shapiro at the Max Weber-Soziologentag. Horkheimer is front left, Adorno front right, and Habermas is in the background, right, running his hand through his hair. Siegfried Landshut is in the background left. (wiki)

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Canada Church Clint Global Society

The Landslide

The Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote:

Imperceptibly, through decades of gradual erosion, the meaning of life in the West has ceased to be seen as anything more lofty than the “pursuit of happiness” a goal that has even been solemnly guaranteed by constitutions. The concepts of good and evil have been ridiculed for several centuries; banished from common use, they have been replaced by political or class considerations of short lived value. It has become embarrassing to state that evil makes its home in the individual human heart before it enters a political system. Yet it is not considered shameful to make dally concessions to an integral evil. Judging by the continuing landslide of concessions made before the eyes of our very own generation, the West is ineluctably slipping toward the abyss. Western societies are losing more and more of their religious essence as they thoughtlessly yield up their younger generation to atheism.


Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, “Godlessness: the First Step to the Gulag”. Templeton Prize Lecture, 10 May 1983 (London).

Most of us have never been in a landslide. I know I haven’t. So I needed to look up “how to survive a landslide“. There are only three options:

  • Run at a right angle and try to get to the outside of it
  • Get to the rooftop
  • Cover yourself with something strong

Solzhenitsyn said there was a “landslide of concessions” being made in the West (in 1983!). Those concessions to godlessness or “secularism” as it is more politely known have only multiplied since then. The tremors are unmistakable

The Trees are Tilting

One of the warning signs for a coming landslide is that that trees tilt. Normally, the stability of the ground is able to uphold tall trees, utility poles and any other high structures. When a landslide is going to come the earth beneath the trees shifts and the trees begin to tilt.

Living in a commuter community you can expect that the tremors of change in the cities may take a long time to reach you. But I’ve found that the trees are tilting. An example of this is how I was informed that the public library in my ultra-conservative town is hosting the drag queen storytimes for children.

I cite this, simply to note that in every sphere of public life, reaching beyond the dense urban centres to the family-laden enclaves of the suburbs, an ideology is being promoted that undermines biological nature and the responsibility to protect children from sexualized grooming.

The modest mandate of the public library (to lend books) inflates with ideological purposes foreign to it. So we have to conclude that manipulation of the foundations is sweeping through. The trees are tilting.

Alarmism and Anti-Alarmism

In any natural disaster, whether it’s impending or engulfing you, there is a temptation to panic. Fear of a landslide can cause people to think irrationally. They may see the cracks in the foundations or hear the rumblings, but instead of staying calm and using the time that they have to make a wise plan of action, they shout and scream and rail against the coming landslide. This is the alarmist response. It wastes precious time and energy decrying reality, not dealing with it.

The anti-alarmist impulse can paralyze a person. Since the landslide is so large, and so horrible, a person simple escapes into a false reality. We know that one of the great challenges during wildfire disasters is convincing people to leave their homes. Often, they have let themselves have escapist fantasies that the danger is not that bad, and the alarmists are exaggerating. What they don’t realize is that the danger is real, and their ignorance of it puts them in danger too.

If we take the categories of alarmist and anti-alarmist, they can helpfully clarify how many people are responding to the landslide. For example, there are Christians who see the landslide coming, but their response is to angrily decry it without giving too much thought to how to respond wisely. Their alarmism is not constructive. Their alarm scales up in its confirmation bias as the landslide gets bigger and bigger, but the only positive conclusion they offer is “I told you so”.

Likewise, the anti-alarmist impulse is prevalent among Christians. This has happened among pastors I know. Recently, after hearing a talk on the landslide issues of our day– sexuality and ethics, a pastor confessed that he had been intentionally ignoring the landslide all around him. He was afraid to bring up the reality of how bad things really were. And he was also afraid that his anti-alarmist church would view his attempts at pointing to the landslide as so much hysteria.

So we have to recognize that both the alarmist and anti-alarmist impulses are either misdirected or escapist. For Christians, when parachurch ministries engage in polemics for entertainment, they are merely alarmists who distract from constructive preparations by cleverly shouting the obvious. At the same time, evangelical denominations and institutions tend to be anti-alarmist in bent. They are so quick to tsk-tsk the alarmists, that act blissfully unaware of the landslide, and trust their own self-righteousness as a clever enough solution to any disaster that may come. Sadly they are hopelessly deluded.

Failed Emergency Plans

Not everyone has responded to the landslide in thoughtless ways. Yet many of the emergency responses people have had are flawed or failed.

When you think about a landslide, one failed emergency response might be to run away from the landslide, thinking that if you can just stay ahead of the landslide you’ll be okay.

When it comes to our modern-day, the two groups who are gripped by the “keep ahead of the landslide” plan are the Boomer generation and the corporations (and their politicians of course). Both of these groups (with lots of overlap between them), have successfully run ahead of the landslide up until now. They have been alarmed at the rumblings, but have had false confidence in their ability to outrun it.

If the landslide undermines monogamous male-female marriage, then Boomers and corporations will start with accepting divorce, then move to a series of what Solzhenitzn called, “concessions”, such as co-habitation, then abortion, then intentional childlessness, then gay relationships, then gay marriages, and then gender-fluid ‘unions’. At each point, the Boomers and the corporations have been swift enough to run ahead just enough.

But you can’t outrun a landslide.

This is why noted lesbian activist, the former tennis star Martina Navratilova is being overwhelmed by the transgender movement. She thought she could run ahead of the landslide, but her lesbianism is no longer enough. Her panic is expressed when she hastily offers obeisance and apology toward the trans movement lest she be consumed. Examples are accruing, but a common theme is how Boomers or corporations have successfully run ahead of the landslide, but now are getting completely run over.

Another failed emergency plan is the person who runs toward the landslide, like a child can run into a small wave and hop over its height. This is typified in the bombastic culture warrior who assumes that the good old days are just beyond the shifting ground under his feet. The nostalgia for lost pasts drives a person to irrationally seek to run into the slide, thinking that they have the ability to withstand the wave or to keep their heads above it and exit on the far side relatively unscathed.

The hubris of this approach appeals to many people and might be exemplified the most in the populist movements of Trumpism, Brexit and others around the world. Often the idea is that if a person can only muster up enough resistance to the wave, that person will be able to stand against it and prevail.

But since the landslide is more than a small political wave that laps the beaches of our day, resistance to it is futile. It is a wave of a zeitgeist that is deep and broad that can’t be hopped over, you’ll only be crushed.

What to Do in Disaster

There is no sense wasting breath decrying the landslide endlessly, or acting as if it’s all much ado about nothing. It won’t help to try to stay a few paces ahead of it, nor can you run at it with your fist raised in foolish rage. So what to do?

As the wiki informed me, you can run at 90 degrees from it, get to the rooftops and wait it out, or you can hide under something strong and hope you don’t get crushed or suffocated.

The 90 Degree Run

The first option seems to be the best. Evacuate the area of the landslide with a realistic view of its scope and danger. Run at 90 degrees and try to get somewhere in your life, your church, your society where you can have peace and rest again.

This first option recognizes that things will never be the same again in landslide’s path. This might be the most frightening dread of all for people. When they realize that they must leave everything behind and get away, they become displaced refugees, socially, ideologically, and even perhaps physically.

I spoke with someone who was contemplating leaving his country because of the landslide of social and political changes that are happening. He said that his great-grandparents left their country to come to a better one. Why wouldn’t he consider uprooting and moving too?

Yet even if a person remains in their country, in the same society, they have to make radical decisions about their lives. The 90 degree run must take place in the church they join, the job they do, the schooling they give, and the priorities they hold.

History is full of people who had to make these 90 degree runs. From the earliest days of the Christian church, persecution resulted in martyrdoms, yes, but also in radical flight. The Christians left their homes and in the case of the Jewish Christians, their societal networks, in order to reform them in new ways and new places. Whether it was refugees moving to Calvin’s Geneva, the Huegenot flight from France, or the Pilgrims departure to the Americas, there have been many people who have made radical choices to try to get to the outside of the landslide.

The Rooftop

The second option in a landslide is to get to the rooftop. If you’ve ever seen pictures of people who have been caught in a landslide, the survivors remain on their roofs for long periods of time, while all that is around them lies devastated by floods and mud.

In the landslide of our time, there are people who know there isn’t time to get out. They are trapped. They have either ignored the warning signs, or they have acted irrationally and are now caught.

People who are caught in our landslide are those who tried to ‘manage’ what Albert Mohler has called, “the sexual revolution”. Often people who are caught are those who are Boomers with career capital tied to institutions that are already engulfed in the landslide.

If your salary or pension is tied to one of those “tilting trees” then you likely will be hesitant to flee until it’s too late. However, some people will realize the danger, and all they can do is cut ties with their previous security (salary, pension, career status), and try to survive.

Survival on the rooftop, like all survival will involve a great restriction of life to the bare essentials. The Christian believer will become focussed locally, on their own growth in Christ, their family’s training in the faith, their local church’s order and faithfulness, and a sustainable vocation that meets their basic needs.

Like anyone who is in this position, the rooftop survivor of the landslide is not in a position to flourish. But they can survive. What they need to prepare for is to take enough provisions with them so that they can last through the initial devastation, and also the enduring aftermath. This is similar to what Rod Dreher has advocated as The Benedict Option.

It can be difficult for comfortable Western Christians to imagine a society in the aftermath of the landslide. But history is the best guide. Whether the biblical history of Israel and its fall, or the collapse of the Roman Empire, or more recently, the capitulations under Nazism or the landslide of the Russian Revolution. In each case, the aftermath of the landslide was utterly different than life before it swept through. Christians must use the wisdom of history, and the recognition of the common, fallen nature of mankind, to anticipate the possibility of a landslide that defaces all we have known in our lifetime. Getting to the rooftop might be an option that is still available to us.

Hide Under Something Strong

The most desperate measure is still better than none at all. For the person in a landslide, they might be completely caught off guard. They might be totally unaware of how engulfing the landslide will be. And when it comes, they are swallowed up.

In those brief moments, a person may be able to hide under something strong. Maybe they can have just enough of an air pocket to keep from suffocating. Maybe they can have just enough protection to keep from being crushed. But their hope is that someone else will find them and rescue them.

Thankfully, the gospel message is the strongest shield that anyone can hide under. In our cultural moment, we already see how people who have been engulfed by the landslide have found rescue from the only One who could possibly do so, Jesus Christ. Who are the survivors? The formerly gay, or trans or racists, or exploiters or adulterers. Or as Paul put it:

Or do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God.

1 Cor 6:10-11 NAS

Already in gospel-shielded churches, there are people entering who had been swept up in the landslide, who had only survived its devastating perversions by a miracle, the miracle of faith in Christ.

Constructing an Emergency Disaster Plan

If you hear the rumblings, feel the tremors and see the cracking foundations, you may still have time to act wisely and make realistic plans to survive and hopefully thrive.

A constructive plan will involve the following:

  1. Seeking after the Triune God, according to the Word of God.
  2. Catechizing yourself and your family with the Scripture, theology and song.
  3. Investing in the local church and it’s biblically mandated mission. Support biblical soundness in pastors, and promoting the training of new pastors.
  4. Believe in God as Creator, and the nature which he has assigned to mankind.
  5. Uphold the unity and distinction of male and female created in the image of God.
  6. Preserve and promote fathers in families.
  7. Protect and prioritize mothers in families.
  8. Untether yourself from institutions or structures that have given you security, but are being engulfed by the landslide.
  9. Develop parallel networks for trade and service which are not dependent on the infrastructure that may be wiped away by the landslide.
  10. Pray for miracles of deliverance from the landslide, and in its aftermath.

May God have mercy on us all.

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Canada Clint Global Gospel Society Theology

Why Seeking Truth is So Important Today

The word of the year in 2016 was “post-truth”. The Oxford Dictionary defined it as, “Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” In subsequent years, “post-truth” has become a true description of our society’s bent.

Yet the Christian cannot succumb to the spirit of the age. We cannot permit ourselves to operate on a post-truth basis. We must be seekers of the truth, because we belong to Jesus who said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

Lead Me In Your Truth

From David’s Psalms, we learn to ask God to actually lead us in God’s truth (Psa 25:5), since he sends out his light and truth to do the leading (Psa 43:3). God is viewed as a conquering defender for “the cause of truth” (Psa 45:4) because truth is his delight (Psa 51:6). The one who follows God wishes to be taught to walk in God’s truth (Psa86:11), for hope resides in God’s “word of truth”, which would be devastating to lose (Psa 119:43).

Speaking Truth in Love

We know Jesus Christ through the true testimony of the Evangelists. Truth is valued by Jesus and his witnesses. All it takes is to survey the adjective, “true” used by Jesus himself throughout the Gospel of John. At the end of John’s Gospel he has a declaratory statement about the whole saying:

This is the disciple  who is bearing witness about these things, and who has written these things, and  we know   that his testimony is true.

John 21:24

It is no wonder then, that the disciples of Jesus would be commanded to “put away falsehood” (Eph 4:25a). In fact, there is a positive command given to believers which requires them to be not only seekers of truth, but speakers of truth. Paul says, “let each one of you  speak the truth with his neighbour, for   we are members one of another” (Eph 4:25b).

This is the pattern of life of the Christian. This style of living and speaking is called “speaking the truth in love” (Eph 4:15). It is (super)natural for the Christian to do this because the Spirit of truth guides the believer into all the truth (John 16:13). In so far as a Christian is being led by the Spirit, they will be a truth-teller, speaking the truth in love.

Truth Seeking and Saying

Personally, we need to speak the truth, but also “practice the truth” (1 John 1:6). John makes the point that if our speech claims are inconsistent with our behaviour, then we are in fact lying. The distortion of lies requires truth to be exchanged. It is the conscious and subconscious exchange of truth, in preference for lies. Paul made this point explicit in his letter to the Romans when he said:

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 1:25

Christians, must confess the truth, from God himself, through the true evaluation of God’s universe. Christians will even risk being misunderstood because they love others enough to speak the truth. Paul warned the Galatian church, “Have I then become your enemy by  telling you the truth? (Gal 4:16).

Gentleness in Service to the Truth

What is ironic in our post-truth age is that people are prone to advance “their truth” (not true truth), by demonstrations of power. This can be the power of words on social media. Or it can be the power of legislation from governments.

By contrast, Christians have their truth-telling enveloped by gentleness. This means that they make careful movements in the conversation. It does not require striking a blow when a sensitive, but firm stance will do. This is the counsel that Paul gave to Timothy, namely to correct “with gentleness”, with the hope that “God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth” (2 Ti 2:25).

In a post-truth society, when Christians speak the truth in this gentle, but firm way, it will stand out. By rejecting every play for power, Christians can humbly return to their role as truth-tellers without the tribal agendas of our day. The only agenda that we broadcast is the rule and reign of the Lord Jesus Christ. That truth needs to be heralded far and wide until all post-truth claims fall helplessly to the ground.

unsplash-logoEvangeline Shaw

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Anxiety Canada Clint Global Society Theology

The Millenials’ Search for Inspiration

The influence of a sixteen-year-old has risen on the world stage, and Christians should take notice. Greta Thunberg, or just “Greta” is an environmental activist who is speaking at larger and larger events. Recently she spoke to a half million people in Montreal. Clearly, Greta has inspired people with her message.

The Search for Inspiration

Regardless of the degree of concern, you have about climate change, you can’t ignore the way a teenager has given inspiration to many of her peers and their parents.

Since Greta speaks with clarity and boldness about her views, she has galvanized the attention of young people in a hyper-distracted age. We know that keeping people’s attention is very difficult. Greta has spoken into the cultural moment with something that Millenials have been hungering for: inspiration.

It is easily forgotten that for all of our googling wisdom and instragrammed postures, there is a sterility and banality about life which millenials are feeling deeply. The result is that they know something isn’t right. And they don’t want to hear platitudes from the Boomers and GenXers that everything is going to be okay. As Greta said:

Adults keep saying we owe it to the young people to give them hope. But I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful; I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act, I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house was on fire, because it is.

World Economic Forum

Greta has inspired the Millenial generation to think about more ultimate issues than cat videos and the Kardashians. But her message of inspiration, like so many other would-be prophets, fails to be ultimate enough. Her universal call for panic is not panicked enough, and in another way, it is panic that is misdirected.

The Panic of Hell

What Christians should recognize is that Greta has reintroduced the power of future damnation into our minds. The panic of global climate catastrophe (only about a decade away it is claimed), has created an urgency, immediacy and summoning power to a teenager’s message. It is a secularized version of the panic of being hell-bound.

At a time when evangelical Christians have utterly muted any talk of the panic of a literal damnation in hell, Greta has placed the panic of ‘the house on fire’ as her central point of inspiration.

An Urgent Message

Maybe Christians should learn to both inspire and warn in ways that Greta cannot. Who among evangelicals today does not get just a bit squeamish to say along with John the Baptist, “flee from the wrath to come” (Luke 3:7)? Or Jesus’s striking words, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” (John 9:39)?

Could the warning to metaphorical ‘weeds’ of the world be any more panic-inducing than to tell them where they are going? As Jesus said they go into “the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 13:42).

Maybe we should inspire and warn in the ways that Jesus did. Greta is doing it for her message. How much more should we do so for the message of Jesus?

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Agrarian Pastor Clint Global Gospel Theology

Be honest about the wheat and the chaff

As we get further away from the sources of our food, it becomes more difficult to understand the processes involved. For example, who among us has ever handled wheat? Who has actually seen chaff?

One of the key actions which the Messiah would bring, according to John the Baptist, was to separate the wheat from the chaff:

His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

Luke 3:17, cf Mat 3:12

Few people today would know what ‘winnowing’ is. It would be hard to find a threshing floor, except possibly for a remote village in a far off rural place. The process however, is something that the Messiah does, so it is something we should be clear about.

Together and Separated

The fact is that humanity, considered as a whole is like so many stalks of wheat. The pristine fields that stand golden in the sunlight have an apparent beauty to the naked eye. Yet the purpose of the field is to yield wheat. To gather or harvest this yield requires a great separation. The stalk, leaves and outer coverings that are attached together with the wheat must be separated. That which is not wheat is chaff. Although together for a time, and even standing quite proudly the chaff will be separated from the wheat. Separation is the essence of judgement.

The Suddenness of Threshing

If you drive past a farmer’s field on your commute, or you travel out of town by the same route, you may notice a big change. One day you will see the tall crop like a vast brush of velcro, or like a golden carpet stretching to the horizon. Another day, you will see it gone. Sheared off. Cut down and scraped. It is a dramatic change that can be surprisingly sudden.

The closest analogy most people have for this is the difference between their untamed grass on Friday and their neatly trimmed lawn on Saturday. The contrast with the farmer’s field is the threshing. There is not just a change in the field from being uncut to cut. It is a change from being unthreshed to being separated. But the analogies are the same in seeing that it is sudden. Threshing, mowing and the final judgement are all sudden. For the Day of the Lord, “will come like a thief in the night” (1 Thess 5:12).

The World Chaff

It can be hard to think that the lustre of our world is only temporary. Our shiny media and popular heroes can appear eternal, for a time. But all of it changes from being green and growing, to be chaff. David said famously in Psalm 1:

The wicked are not so, but are like the chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

Psalm 1:4-6

The chaff is separated from the wheat, so the analogy points to the reality of unbelievers being separated from believers. This separation is the most offensive part of God’s harvest when viewed by sinful man. All people assume that if there is a harvest, they will all be among the lasting, cherished wheat. In other words, all people are closet universalists.

But the reality is that there will be a separation. And the separation will be all the more dramatic because the chaff had at one point looked so green. God in his common grace permits even the chaff of this world to have a growth, an order and a beauty. Yet even for all of that common grace, the chaff remains chaff. The wicked remain the wicked (Rev 22:11).

The Privilege of the Kept

The flip side of the chaff being threshed and discarded is that the wheat is kept and “gathered into this barn” (Matt 3:12,13:30; Luke 3:17). What a privilege to be kept for the Lord’s use and pleasure. When you look at a wheat field, you cannot actually see the wheat. It is completely obscured by all that will become chaff. So it is with this world. Paul said that “natural” people don’t accept spiritual realities because they are “not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Cor 2:14). Chaff cannot discern what is wheat. The world cannot discern the true chosen of God, because it is discerned only by spiritual eyes, and it is only revealed ultimately after the harvest of the last day.

When we despair of our apparent hiddenness as Christians in this world. When we think about how small and unseen is our place in the tall towers of society. Then we should remember that everything will be chaff, apart from God’s own precious people. That harvest yield will be all that matters on the last day.

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Canada Clint Creation Global Society Theology

Comfort For Climate Change Anxiety

Many people are feeling a lot of anxiety about climate change. There are even strikes among school children aimed at raising awareness about the issues. These two words–“climate change”– represent a lot more than a surface reading. “Climate” is the broad word used to describe relative geographical temperatures and weather patterns. “Change” is just that. A change. And that change is causing people around the world to become very worried.

Climates Change

I live in Alberta where the proverb states, “If you don’t like the weather, wait 20 minutes”. The actor Leonardo DiCaprio famously witnessed evidence of climate change. He saw how quickly a Chinook can change the temperature, as the west wind descends from the mountains and melts all the snow as it heads east. The climate does change and indigenous people have been watching this “snow eater” for a long time.

So that’s just it. Climates change. Growing up on a farm, everyone who works out in the fields recognizes that within a few miles there can be different microclimates: some are wetter, some drier. Those microclimates can change with passing cycles of wet years and dry years.

Concerns, Presuppositions and Predictions

Of course when most people refer to “climate change” they are referring to something more like environmental deterioration or pollution-based changes in weather patterns. Climate change has become so familiar to us that we all know that these words are now equated with a whole range of environmental concerns, philosophical presuppositions and even accepted predictions about the future. To disagree in any degree with the concerns, presuppositions and predictions is to be a “climate denier” even though no one disagrees that there is such a thing as climate.

Empathy with Environmental Concerns

Into this mix, the Christian believer has empathy with the wider concerns for “climate change”, but Christians also have a surprisingly bleak outlook for the earth.

On the one hand, the stewardship of the earth is part of the mandate given to Adam and Eve in the second chapter of Genesis. Their calling required them to “be fruitful and multiply” and to “tend and keep” the extendable borders of Eden. Population control was not in view, but rather population expansion. More people would mean more environmental change. The wildness of the natural world would be brought under cultivation and put into a tamed order. At least that’s how it ought to have been.

With the sin of Adam and the curse upon his lineage, there was the accompanying curse upon the earth itself. Weeds would grow and require removal. Now consider this question. What do you do with weeds? You pull the weeds by hand if you’re a gardener. What do you do with the pulled weeds? You must put them in a pile somewhere. If you don’t dispose of them carefully the seedlings of the dead weeds can be carried by the wind right back into your garden. So we can say that the gardener’s weed pile is the consequence of the third chapter of Genesis.

Burning Weeds East of Eden

For millennia, people have burned their weeds. The reason being that they are not returning the weeds to the soil (to take root) or permitting the dead weeds to re-seed the cleansed field when they’re piled up. Incineration has always been the most effective disposal method. But when you burn things, you are releasing carcinogens, i.e. pollution. Imagine the weed piles burning east of Eden.

The alternative is to make piles, even if we call them organic piles of ‘compost’. Piles of refuse are the consequence of the Fall. These piles require quarantine and management. How a society deals with their piles indicates how well ordered they are. Municipalities everywhere are running out of room for their piles. But pile management is an old question which even the Levitical laws had an answer for.

Sin’s Pollution

So the point I’m making is that the curse upon Adam and the earth, combined with a mandate for population expansion results in a crowded polluted world. The sin of fallen mankind also ensures that human beings will care less about how their personal actions injure others. We will pollute because it’s convenient, or because we don’t have the ordered leisure to pollute in less injurious ways. Sin will also blind us to the reality that our plight in this fallen world is the result of inherited sin. It’s not curable by education, politics or any other man-made reform.

The End of the World

Added to this reality of a polluted earth is the prophecy which promises that the end will not be a utopia. As Peter indicated (2 Peter 3:7), “the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire”. The intention of this promise is to summon people to faith in Jesus Christ who offers security of life beyond the grave, and the hope of heaven beyond the sorrows of earth. As the United Nations predicts that there are only 11 years until “climate catastrophe”, isn’t it all the more reason for people to heed the message going out since the days of John the Baptist, ” flee from the wrath to come”?

Between Aspiration and Compassion

If the language of catastrophe is overblown, no one can deny that Christians want to be good stewards of the earth, just as the original dominion mandate indicated. However, this is also where the conflicts between aspirations and compassion come into play. In Mediterranean climates that offer little temperature change throughout the year and few distinguishable seasons, there is a geographical luxury to pursue experiments in addressing “climate change”. But for northern climates (like Canada’s) every apartment building, house and business is heated by hydrocarbons.

What if bread was denied to children in Revolutionary France because it was made in Royalist mills? What if a fire in the fireplace was denied to a single mother in Dickensian England because the fuel was not carbon-neutral? Our compassion requires us to admit that utopian visions don’t always square with practical realities. As James flatly stated, “if one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?” (James 2:16). As we seek good stewardship, just laws and practical compassion, we need to be careful that we don’t consign the weak and vulnerable to suffering in order to placate the consciences of the affordably secure.

People and Promises

When I speak with friends from other parts of Canada there is often an assumption that the bitumen-based oil-sands (or tar sands/dirty oil if you prefer) cannot be anything but a massive expression of the polluting curse.

I could make an argument in favour of fossil fuels generally. Or I could note that it is fossil fuel that heats my friends’ homes and powers all of the unnoticed networks that supply their needs. Or I could mention the hyper-sensitive procedures the oil extractors now use that aim to reclaim ground in better condition than it was before.

But there are really two key factors which drive me to support realistic thinking about fossil fuels and their circumspect use: people and promises.

First, the oil business is made up of people, dads and mums who work to provide the means for our needs to be met —from stocking our supermarkets to heating our furnaces. It’s a strange sight to see people driving vans to a rally that want to shut down the jobs of the people that gave them their means of transportation.

Our church prays regularly for people who are unemployed. The callous may say— get a different job. But that is where the utopian aspirations bump up against the realities of local compassion. I pray that the oil companies would start hiring again because many families are struggling.

The second factor that makes me think realistically about climate change is the promises of God. Even if God is going to use the climate catastrophe as part of the means of bringing his final judgement, there is a climate security that he has ensured until then. He made a promise to Noah, after the subsiding of the flood and the covenant ratified by the rainbow in the sky. God said:

While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”

Genesis 8:22

So the earth will remain— for a time. During that interim, we must use the earth’s resources responsibly, but use them we must. For if we ignore the resources God has given us, then we run the danger of showing contempt for God as well as our neighbour.

Comfort for Climate Anxiety

The exhortations of Peter remind us that:

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

2 Peter 3:9

As many people, especially young people, are being gripped by what is described as “eco-anxiety“, Christians need to offer an alternative eschatology. Our hope resides beyond this earth. As Peter concludes:

Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

2 Peter 3:11-13

Let us be good stewards of the earth, but let us set our deepest hopes on heaven, delighting to see our Lord Jesus face to face for eternity.

unsplash-logoMarkus Spiske

Categories
Canada Clint Global Gospel Society Suffering & Trials

The Persecution Spectrum

Could it be that we misunderstand the persecutions which Christians face? On the one hand, we can think that only the imprisoned are persecuted. At the other hand, we can argue that every resistance from the world, the flesh and the devil is a species of persecution.

Degrees of Persecution

I think it’s better to think of persecution on a spectrum. When seen on a spectrum, persecution of Christians is not limited to the extremes of being either non-existent (we’re not persecuted in the West) or state co-ordinated (Stalinist, Maoist, etc). There are degrees. And each degree requires a measured response.

Persecution in the West

In the West, the spectrum of persecution applies. It is not like the overt political co-ordination of other countries, but it is moving along the spectrum in that direction.

Part of what is happening is that there is a vast shift which removes the cultural elites of the past and replaces them with others. Christians are not in the cultural elite anymore. In fact, they are viewed with suspicion. The result is that Christians won’t get preferential treatment. When they enter grey areas, Christians won’t get the benefit of the doubt. Christians were in the habit of feeling they ought to have their voice heard, as much or more so than other citizens. Now when their voice enters the public square, many people are looking for a way to turn off the microphone. It’s not always state co-ordinated. But it is social, informal and real.

Denunciation as Persecution

I was reminded of this when our church posted an announcement on social media about an upcoming conference on biblical sexuality. The comments were hostile. When I tried to be winsome and persuasive, I was accused of being arrogant and not secular enough in my reply.

From this exchange I realized something. The person who was so incensed by our conference did not want to dialogue with me. They wanted to denounce me. Denunciation has been a form of persecution made popular in the twentieth century, particularly in communist countries. There is no physical effect. There is not even a legal component. But denunciation is a more aggressive form of opposition than mere disagreement.

Distorted Views of Persecution

Now if you agree with me that persecution is on a spectrum, the temptation will be to distort the proportions of the persecution that you might feel. It can be easy to dramatize our psychological injuries into massive systemic plots. In fact, across society, this is already happening as people will claim that others are expressing micro-aggressions against them. If we make a co-worker’s denunciation of us into a basis for a rights crusade, we will have lost the battle completely.

Our Adversary

Instead, we have to consider how the early Christians faced varying degrees of persecution. In the first century when Peter wrote to the “elect exiles” in the region of modern Turkey, he reminded them that the first persecutor was the devil. He called him the “adversary” and likened him to a prowling lion “seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

According to Peter’s logic, a Christian who reads his first letter needs to be watchful for this persecutor, the devil. In fact, Peter instructs:

Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world

1 Peter 5:9

Unless you are going to interpret the passage in a way that limits Satan’s activity only to the work of governments, you will broaden the application. Persecution is on a spectrum. If we don’t recognize the spectrum, we will be “ignorant of his designs” (2 Cor 2:11) and fail to resist the devil when he works in ways other than government-sanctioned persecution.

Not Bitter and Fuzzy

We ought to beware of letting our happy, yet clear witness turn bitter and fuzzy. If we give our best energies to fighting for a cultural seat at the table, we will have little energy left to be faithful ambassadors of another kingdom. If we lobby only for societal rights, we’ll be fuzzy about the superior summons to belief in the gospel. If we are shrill in our replies to sinners who are “without God and without hope in the world” (Eph 2:12), then our bitter witness will only communicate that our gospel is powerless to change hatred to love. The gospel even creates love for enemies (Mt 5:44).

Practice Joyfully Clear Witness

Our gospel witness muscles can practice responding to persecution in the less intense end of the spectrum. That practice will prepare us for more intense sufferings. At least Christians will stop being surprised by the spectrum of persecution. Peter says we shouldn’t be surprised (1 Peter 4:12). We know that it is coming. If we respond with joyful clarity about the truth of the gospel, we can have confidence that we share in some degree with the “same kinds of suffering… experienced by [our] brotherhood throughout the world” (5:9).

Above all, we need to remember that we “share Christ’s sufferings”, with the goal that we “may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed”. (4:13). Let us embrace our joyfully clear witness. This witness is both our duty and our joy across the entire spectrum of persecution.

unsplash-logoJace & Afsoon

Categories
Church Clint Global Gospel Ministry Pastors Spiritual Growth

Are You Willing to Share Your Pastor?

If you are a Christian believer who has benefitted from the explosion of good resources in the last thirty years, someone else has shared their pastor with you.

Maybe that pastor didn’t come to your home or your church, but he came into your hearing and reading because someone else shared him. I’ve benefitted from the people of Grace Community Church sharing John MacArthur with others. He even came and spoke in Calgary a long time ago. If his church hadn’t shared him, he wouldn’t have come and the believers in Calgary would not have been blessed.

The Church Universal

When churches share their pastors, they show that they care about the mission of the church universal as well as their local church. Consider the generosity of Westminster Chapel in London sharing Martyn Lloyd-Jones in the sixties and seventies. Think how Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis sacrificed in sharing John Piper to take time to write books and speak at conferences. In each of these cases and many others you could name, the local churches paid the salary of men who were fruitful beyond their own local congregation. Their generosity by their sacrifice lead many others to be blessed.

Now it might seem obvious that Christians in these churches that I mentioned would want to be generous with their pastors and bless others with their time. But the fact is that many church members do not want to share. A friend told me his perception of what a congregation thinks about sharing their pastor. He said everyone thinks, “What’s in it for me?”

So pastors often have to persuade and promote the good work that they have opportunity to do outside of their church. Many times pastors are simply asked to help, asked to speak, or asked to equip. The pastor views it as a chance to do extended ministry. The church can view it as being cheated.

Painting the Neighbour’s Fence

Church members can feel this way when they don’t find that the pastoral care is sufficient, or that the organization of the church is to their liking. I have had people question why I would go to equip pastors in a difficult East Asian country for two weeks. They thought that there was more than enough ministry at home to do. Why go there? For many people, any service outside the church is like painting someone else’s fence when your own could use some touch-ups or even a second coat.

Neglect

Now there can certainly be a case when a local church pastor neglects his congregation in order to give his best time and effort to others. If that is the case then the church’s elder board ought to discuss the frequency of his speaking engagements and set limits on them. Or maybe that pastor needs to request a reshuffling of responsibilities so that his ministry in the local church is more effective, while he carries out important ministry outside the church.

Suspicion

Some people in the church are simply suspicious that opportunities their pastor has for wider ministry necessarily make him prone to pride, seeking a name, and the praise of men. Of course, these temptations exist when a pastor speaks, teaches or writes beyond his congregation. But they are not unconnected with the temptations in his local church ministry. If the church members and their elders see a consistent humility in a pastor while he leads the local church, they can at least know that he has a starting point for faithfulness in outside work.

Celebrity Pastors

Many of the “celebrity pastors” who have fallen have been marked by characteristics in their local church that got amplified in a larger area of influence. If they were bossy, or flirtatious, or attention-seeking while they are in their own church, the larger stage only amplifies those sins and works of the flesh. When I hear stories about the ‘behind closed door’ talk of some pastors who later had moral failures, often the wrecks could have been predicted.

Publicly Shared, But No Celebrity

Most pastors that I know are not celebrities–even ones that speak at conferences or have written a few books. They are not in the category of ‘celebrity’. But their churches have shared them, sacrificing generously to do so. The pastor who has been publicly shared by his church can then speak to others or create resources for them knowing he is accountable to his local church and supported by them. Church members truly are partners in that ministry. Paul showed his appreciation for publicly sharing him when he said to the Philippian Church:

I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now

Phil 1:4-5

If you read a blog post, read a book, listen to a podcast, hear a sermon, or read a book which comes from the labours of a pastor not your own, then you’ve benefitted from someone’s sacrifice. If you live outside of Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington DC, and yet you benefit from the ministry of pastors there, you have received the sacrifice of others. Another church has generously shared their pastor with you. If all of us took the attitude of giving and receiving with sacrificial generosity, then maybe our pastors would be more accountable because their churches would be more involved in the outside work. Maybe there would be more unity and fruitfulness among churches together as they share the gifts God has given them, including their pastors.

unsplash-logoDaniel Chekalov

Categories
Canada Church Clint Global Gospel Ministry Society Spiritual Growth

Being Expectant About the Coming Harvest

Summer is a gift of God to a people who live in a cold country. Our summers are short and so there is always a certain urgency. We have to take advantage of the warm (hot!) weather. 

The same is true for the Christian life. All people need to take advantage of the gospel offer in this season before the last Day. Paul reminds the Corinthians that “now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor 6:2). 

A Sense of Urgency

It is also a season for calling people to believe in the gospel. This is not just your own personal belief in Christ, but the importance of bearing witness to this news of salvation. The season for this is brief too. And that is all the more reason why we need to have a sense of urgency, even as we are basking in the sunlight of the Son. 

Jesus knew this tendency to forget how brief the window is. He said to the disciples:

Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. (John 4:35)

The harvest was urgently upon them. And they needed to admit the facts. They couldn’t let themselves think that they still had lots of time before the urgency kicks in. 

The Unexpectant

In 1866, Charles Spurgeon preached on this passage and he noted how unexpectant Christians had become. He said: 

You know that this is the general feeling at present in the Christian church, not to expect any great things now, but to be waiting and watching for something or other which may one of these days, in the order of providence, “turn up.” 

We can be quite unexpectant. That is why we are fearful in evangelism, or we are apathetic in it. We just don’t expect that we can do it, or it will do any good. We almost completely take God out of the equation. All we end up seeing is the indifference or hostility of people toward the gospel. 

But could it be that the indifferent person is simply being ripened by God, so that their apathy will be arrested by the drama of God’s wrath that rests upon them? (cf. Rom 1:18). Maybe they’ll be shaken by the profound condescension and love of God in Christ Jesus? If you speak the gospel to them, they might be ready to burst in relief at finding a refuge to flee from the wrath to come.

You don’t know this for sure. But you can be expectant of God. 

As William Carey said, “Expect great things; attempt great things— for God”.

Enter the Harvest

Summer is a wonderful time. Let’s also remember that it is the precursor to the harvest.  Will you pray with expectancy for ways to enter into God’s harvest?

“The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.” (Luke 10.2). 

Pray this way and God will make you an answer to your own prayer.

3 Ways You Can Expectantly Enter the Harvest:

  1. Prayerfully reflect on God’s undeserved favour to you, and start praying in concentric circles for the salvation of those closest to you, and progressively further out.
  2. Pray for the Word heard together, in your Sunday gatherings and as people apply it in small groups and one-to-one discipling. Pray that new people would be witnessed to and invited to come and hear the message of the gospel too.  
  3. Go and share the gospel with someone and invite them to your church.  

Let us pray to be more expectant of what God can do.

unsplash-logoVladimir Kudinov

Categories
Canada Clint Global Gospel Society

Why “The Universe Has Your Back” isn’t Enough

In the category of tee-shirt spirituality, I came across a slogan that said, “The Universe Has Your Back”. I won’t reference the promoters of this idea (because I don’t want to spread their message for them!). At least at the level of tee shirts and coffee mugs, the idea of the Universe as a benevolent, personal power is gaining traction among our neighbours.

Why is this spirituality appealing? Why stick it on a tee-shirt? Here are a few reasons, followed by what I believe is a necessary alternative.

1. Tee Shirt Spirituality is Casual

At a surface level, the reason for trusting ‘the Universe’ is that it differentiates that kind of believer from all others, without being exclusive of anyone. It can be Atheist, without the philosophy. It can be Buddhist without regimen. It can be Hindu without getting into the pantheon of deities. It can be Christian without the bible, the Trinity, or the gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s a mix of deism and panentheism cast in a catchy way with a coastal vibe. No self-denial required.

2. Wanting a Free Agent Higher Power

The second reason why this tee-shirt spirituality is appealing is that many people are looking for a higher power to help them make sense of their loneliness, society’s strife, and a global awareness of pain. People are longing for something else. But for lost people, they tend to confuse spirituality with ethnicity and cultural allegiance. So if they are not Arab, Indian, Chinese, or Middle American, they will want to avoid associations with the various religions they assume are connected to those cultures.

The belief in the Universe is a handy solution. The Universe can be sort of like a free agent player in the sporting world. The player can play on any team, but is unassociated with any. That’s how belief in the Universe works. It’s a free agent god who is as adaptable as you want ‘it’ to be.

3. The Universe is Insulated from Criticism

Third, although secularism bans talking about God, talking about the Universe gets a free pass. So trusting in the Universe stays nicely insulated from criticism from the religious and the secular. The Christian critic will say that a person is just trying to trust in God, when they are trusting in the universe. But that Universe believer can be flexible and empathetic, all while skipping any of the truth claims of Christian faith. In fact, to the undiscerning, Western, cultural Christian, all of the talk about prayer, meditation, daily gratitude, and the sovereignty of the Universe, might well be what that person really believes anyway. For those ‘Christians’ a slogan like “The Universe Has Your Back”, is a little simpler. “Why fight it with messy doctrine?”, they might ask.

4. The Universe is Gender Neutral

It goes without saying that to have a gender-neutral god to believe in is highly attractive to our society. You don’t have to worry about the maleness of the Christian Jesus or the femaleness of pagan Gaia. If “The Universe Has Your Back”, you can project onto the Universe any combo of gender fluidity you wish.

A Story

In the face of tee-shirt spirituality, one of the great biblical accounts if how a young man was set apart by his father, as well as by God in order to interpret dreams. The young man’s life was filled with dreams, his own and others. Yet his reliance was not on the Universe, or unnamed spiritual forces to interpret these dreams. Instead this man could say to those who had dreams, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Please tell them to me.”(Gen 40:8).

Repeatedly, the man was guided and delivered by a personal being who “had his back”. But the reason he had his back is because of promises that had been made to the patriarchs of this man’s family. The promises were verbal and recorded in writing. The promises were specific, even differentiating certain blessings for some and different blessings or even cursings on others.

There was no vagueness about this God and his ability to interpret dreams, giving this miraculous information to the man. The actions of this God were so specific that even the afflictions that surrounded the man (family betrayals, human trafficking, false accusations, imprisonment,etc) were actually part of a fulfillment of specific promises. No tee shirt spirituality here.

If you know the story, you will recognize that the historical account I’m referring to is the life of Joseph, sold into Egypt, later imprisoned, only to be raised up to Pharoah’s right hand man. All of this was to provide a way to preserve the family of Jacob and fulfill God’s promises to bring the seed of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent.

Better Than “The Universe Has Your Back”

Compare the statement, “The Universe Has Your Back” to this:

As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.”

Genesis 50:20

Pray for those who are believing in tee-shirt spirituality. They need a merciful, loving, promise-making, covenant-keeping God to save them. Without it, their casual spirituality is only one more way for them to be those who “by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” (Rom 1:18).

This article was published at The Gospel Coalition Canada

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