Category Archives: Culture

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What is the Ultimate Measure of Successful Cultural Engagement?

If we live out every biblical command to be thoughtful, winsome, loving ambassadors of Jesus Christ will we change the world? Will everyone become a Christian? Not ultimately. Jesus taught that the wheat and the weeds will grow together until they are sorted out in the end (Matthew 13:24–30). So how do we know if we are being successful in our cultural engagement? Since the fullness of the kingdom of God awaits the second coming and ultimate reign of the Messiah, how we measure successful engagement in this present age is faithfulness, not utopia. We faithfully engage in the spheres of influence that God has providentially placed us within and leave the results to God.

Significant transformation in any given generation may or may not occur—the results are up to God—so our call is to be faithful to a theology of engagement as we make disciples of all the nations. God’s providential and redemptive plan marches onward, and we play a part in that. And as leaders, we need to cast this vision and equip the church to engage well, always mindful of Paul’s words: “Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve” (Colossians 3:23 – 24 NASB).

So as we think hard, love hard, dream hard, work hard, pray hard, and train hard, our ultimate goal is to be faithful. And just because our culture does not currently see things from God’s perspective, that doesn’t necessarily mean we have failed. But neither is it a reason to become complacent, throw in the towel, or disengage. All of us certainly have plenty of room to grow by God’s grace and enabled by his Spirit.

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How to Develop Conviction in the Christian Life

If all truth really is God’s truth, then we must not live fragmented lives leading to Christian schizophrenia. We cannot mindlessly absorb the hidden worldviews of our culture and still expect to have the courage and conviction to fulfill our mission as the people of God.

God has already defined reality; it is our job to respond thoughtfully and engage it appropriately. Many have bought into the lie that you need to keep your Christian faith to yourself. Christianity is deeply personal but certainly not private (Previously we discussed why we need to have conversations based on reality and not religion). We have the exciting opportunity and challenge to greet each new day thinking Christianly.

“Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” – Romans 12:1-2

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J.P. Moreland on Tolerance, Religion, and Morality

“Tolerance has come to mean that no one is right and no one is wrong and, indeed, the very act of stating that someone else’s views are immoral or incorrect is now taken to be intolerant (of course, from this same point of view, it is all right to be intolerant of those who hold to objectively true moral or religious positions). Once the existence of knowable truth in religion and ethics is denied, authority (the right to be believed and obeyed) gives way to power (the ability to force compliance), reason gives way to rhetoric, the speech writer is replaced by the makeup man, and spirited but civil debate in the culture wars is replaced by politically correct special-interest groups who have nothing left but political coercion to enforce their views on others.”

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Same-Sex Marriage – How Should Christians Respond? (Video)

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Our culture is talking about Same-Sex Marriage. How should Christians respond?

*A quick note. Christians are not the ones who are driving this issue, but we do need to be prepared to have this conversation (1 Pet. 3:15). We are all broken and all of us are called to repent. The Gospel is good news for all of us, because we all need a Savior.

Should Christians be for Marriage Equality?

What is Marriage? (Article)

How do Christians respond to the top 12 toughest questions about homosexuality?

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Even Really Big Things (Like the Universe) Need an Explanation

The 18th Century intellectual G. W. Leibniz famously asked the fundamental question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” (By the way, he co-discovered calculus…so you can blame him for that one!). In other words, our common sense intuition is that everything that exists has an explanation of its existence. Christian philosopher William Lane Craig offers a very helpful way of making this abstract concept concrete:

“Imagine that you’re hiking through the woods and you come across a translucent ball lying on the forest floor. You would naturally wonder how it came to be there. If one of your hiking partners said to you, “Hey, it just exists inexplicably. Don’t worry about it!” you’d either think that he was crazy or figure that he just wanted you to keep moving. No one would take seriously the suggestion that the ball existed there with literally no explanation. Now suppose you increase the size of the ball in this story so that it’s the size of a car. That wouldn’t do anything to satisfy or remove the demand for an explanation. Suppose it were the size of a house. Same problem. Suppose it were the size of a continent or a planet. Same problem. Suppose it were the size of the entire universe. Same problem. Merely increasing the size of the ball does nothing to affect the need of an explanation.”

Would this apply to God? No, because if He exists, He does so necessarily. But the universe is clearly contingent (i.e., did not “have to” exist of its own nature). This is a version of the cosmological argument for God’s existence. But if God made the universe, then who made God?

Want to explore the evidence for God further? Sean McDowell and I wrote a readable book that will introduce you to the existence of God (we cover science, philosophy, history, and the Bible). We also interview some leading Christian intellectuals in the book as well. We hope you will find it helpful. Learn more here.

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