One of the biggest epiphanies of the conference was a recurrent theme that is near to my heart: the notion that a high priority should be given to the family in the Kingdom of God, bookended by Tim's statements about God raising Adam as a son in the second talk of the conference and his comment to me immediately after the last talk on living in the Garden, "That's why we homeschool."

I am a husband and a father of three, and have come to realize that my family will always be the most important thing I am involved with. We are homeschooling our children because it is the only surefire way of training our children in the way they should go. It is our responsibility, and no one else's. No one can do it better than we can, because it's not just about education, but the passing on of virtues and ideals such as the centrality of family as we act out the Garden narrative.

During the open discussion after dinner on Friday, we had an encouraging conversation about the future of preterist eschatology. At one point, Mick gave an amazing insight: he used his children as an example of the potential that lies in Christians who were never taught futurism but were raised as preterists. They don't have to spend time justifying "this generation shall not pass" as a first-century reference, and so they are able to move on further than the "elementary teachings" that we are stuck spending so much time on. This reminded me of something I wanted to share.

Stick with me here. When two people groups speaking mutually unintelligible languages come into contact and have need for communication, especially in a trade situation, they are likely to come up with some sort of compromise. Often, they will form a sort of hybrid communication system taking elements from each. This communication system is called a "pidgin". The vocabulary comes almost completely from the visitors who are seeking trade (historically, usually English or French) and the grammar (morphology, syntax) is taken from the native language. This system works well enough for trade, but is not classified as a "language" because it lacks a number of morphological features of natural human language; because of its limitations, it sometimes is only spoken between the two language groups to conduct business. The grammatical holes hinder much communication beyond such practical matters.

Yet in cases in which the language of the traders makes an established presence (such as settlement), the language system may be spoken at home around young children who naturally adopt it as a first language. In these cases, something very interesting happens: as part of the natural language acquisition process, children fill in all the holes. When children speak to each other or their parents, they unconsciously and effortlessly begin inserting new parts of speech, formulating verb tenses, and creating any necessary language features that the pidgin lacked, so that they speak a full-fledged language. The resulting nativized pidgin is what we refer to as a "creole".

That's what's going to happen with preterism! We haven't had much time to bring up children thinking naturally as preterists. Right now, they still don't have a lot of peers to "speak the language" to, but it won't be long, as the growing number of us raise our children as Mick has done.

It's an exciting time!

Sam, to help avoid the sort of fireworks going on between your camp and the Covenant Creation camp (neither to which I pledge allegiance), let me first affirm the respect I have for you and Reign of Christ Ministries. I especially enjoy your work on the Resurrection. Great stuff! I am looking forward to meeting you at TV this year; I also highly anticipate your Romans commentary.

Let me explain that I am not foolish enough to simply dismiss Clark's arguments about induction and the weakness of empiricism for ascertaining absolute truth. The tenets of Clark that you and Jason uphold so regularly seem to have been formulated in order to defend against the belligerent and dogmatic materialism that was regarded by many hapless theologians of the time as something of a juggernaut. Contra the Zeitgeist of the time that denied the possibility of the supernatural based upon lack of observation or empirical verifiability, the argument to the effect of, "Yeah, but you can't prove anything logically" was a valid response. In the face of such a foe, it is indeed strategic to call their bluff. It reminds me of Puddleglum's defense (from The Silver Chair), made in a valiant and successful struggle against the influence of an underground enchantress who sought to persuade him and Prince Rillian that their world above ground was only fantasy:

“Suppose…suppose we have only dreamed and made up these things like sun, sky, stars, and moon, and Aslan himself. In that case, it seems to me that the made-up things are a good deal better than the real ones. And if this black pit of a kingdom is the best you can make, then it’s a poor world. And we four can make a dream world to lick your real one hollow…As for me, I shall live like a Narnian even if there isn’t any Narnia. So thank you very much for supper. We’re going to leave your court at once and make our way across your great darkness to search for our land above!”

This sort of defense would be similarly valiant when calling into question the assumptions of an unreasonable materialist. But using such logic in isolation from unreasonable opponents should be a last resort. As a matter of daily life, should we go around with our ears covered insisting, "Well, you can't prove anything"? This is the postmodernist critique of modernism overextended; sure, we cannot know absolute truth through experience, experimentation, science, or induction. But it's simply impractical and a cop-out to appeal to the fallibility of human perception every time someone challenges a position you hold dear. If my wife warned me not to procrastinate mowing the lawn until the weekend was over based upon her observations of my past pattern of behavior, it would be oh-so-logical for me to say, “You cannot demonstrate through logic alone that I was ever going to put off mowing the lawn this weekend.” But I would be missing the point entirely. Observing patterns and extrapolating based upon those observations is the essence of science, and it’s not necessarily irrational to assume those patterns, because it’s all we’ve got, as long as we don't try to rule out that for which we have no evidence, as the materialist does with his argument from silence.

I do not think it a doctrinal necessity that God make some absolute truths known to people through revelation. Even Jesus' walking around on earth wasn't enough of a revelation that everyone intrinsically and in an absolute manner knew Him as the Word of God; the main point of His miracles was to give observational weight to His claims of authority. You may say that those observations were different because they were observations of divine activity - well, I affirm that creation was a divine activity.

God expects us to observe, analyze, and study all possible sources of truth in order for us to formulate our best guess of what the truth is on all matters. You've got to admit that assuming the sun is going to come up the next day, while unprovable, is the only practical way to go about life; refraining from running into the street even though you only know by induction that getting hit by a car causes injury or death is similarly a reasonable assumption, not worth disparaging just because it's not absolute, divinely-revealed truth. Scientific methods such as studying the physical world, testing, making predictions, and extrapolating based on observation may not yield absolute truth, but when they speak in unison they do yield undeniable suggestions that one would be foolish to simply ignore. This is why we can build "better refrigerators".

But of course the main question is whether we allow our knowledge gained through inductive, non-supernatural methods to influence our interpretation of Scripture. I answer, how can we not?

Perhaps you, as a Calvinist, expect the elect to be on some sort of inside track and just know all the truths of the Bible in an obvious and simple way. I doubt this is so because you argue less-than-obvious interpretations all the time, such as the non-literal referents of apocalyptic imagery. On the other hand, someone of your epistemological persuasion, if consistent, would read the prophecies for the stars falling from the sky, the moon turning to blood, etc. in reference to Egypt's judgment and conclude, "Well, just because I haven't observed those things and scientists and historians deny that those things literally happened doesn't mean that they didn't." You may object, "But the apocalyptic language was non-literal, so we shouldn't expect the events to happen literally." In effect, you use the analogy of faith to argue that we use Old Testament apocalyptic language to discern that New Testament apocalyptic language is non-literal; but if you deny the literal fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, then even you are using observation to determine that the Old Testament apocalyptic language was non-literal. "From what I've seen, when things perish physically, they do not abide in their previous state any longer. The universe is still here, so it is reasonable to assume that the stars, the elements, and the sun did not perish as prophesied. Therefore, where the OT speaks of those events, I am not unjustified in inferring a literary method that refers to things non-literally." I have a hard time determining why you think this is different from non-literal Genesis interpretations that argue, for instance, "From what I've seen, there are certain evidences for an old earth/universe. Those observations 'check out' scientifically, so it is reasonable to assume that the earth is old. Therefore, where the Bible refers to things that sound like the earth is young, I am not unjustified in inferring a literary method that refers to things non-literally." I am not saying that science has utterly proved anything with its theories and postulations; I am saying that it is overwrought rhetoric to suggest that, simply because induction cannot absolutely prove anything, that I am not justified in using my observation of the patterns and tendencies observed in the universe to help me understand how the Scriptures, situated as they are within our universe, were intended. In doing this I am not a compromiser of the gospel and a worshiper at the altar of empiricism any more than you are when you read "man" and think of the species "man" as you have encountered him.

So the main difference between us is not, as you have suggested, that I feel that scientific methodology is capable of arriving at truth, but that I do not insist upon absolute proof revealed from God’s lips in order to believe anything, nor do I find it irrational to depend on the orderliness of the natural world that God set up when I observe patterns and postulate their existence in the past when enough evidence seems to substantiate it. Like you and Clark, I would not build a church around science, but it’s in no way a conflict of interests to use my fingers, ears, eyes, tongue, and nose to help me understand how to interpret the book that God elected to be written down and read by men with fingers, ears, eyes, tongues, and noses.

NOTE: Any ad hominem style jabs except where directed toward me will be deleted as soon as I read them.

This will be my first year there. Sadly, I have never met a full preterist in person, so I'm really looking forward to it!

So, who's planning on being there? Just for fun, how about adding a short comment? A simple "I am" will do.

"Knowledge puffs up." This phrase is customarily pulled out of the rest of 1 Corinthians 8:1 and cast as a slur upon those like myself intrinsically driven to seek more learning and understanding. Even the immediate context of this phrase in 1 Corinthians 8 shows, however, that not only is knowledge necessary, it is deficient, incomplete knowledge that puffs up, knowledge devoid of love (for more on this, see this great article from bible.org).

A lover of learning is the type of person who, while his eyes pass over the landscape, notices each glint and shadow out of place, and is all but incapable of resisting the urge to investigate. Sometimes I really don't like being the type who questions things. I fear that it appears I'm doing it for fun, or because I think it's cool to "question everything", or because I assume everyone but me is wrong. I fear this because I've identified those motivations in other people who like the limelight of being unique; yet I can honestly say that I would hardly put myself through the hassle of critiquing views held by the majority or especially the ones I love for no other reason than a little self-aggrandizement.

But this Christmas I began to consider the two groups of people to whom the birth of Jesus was announced. The first group was the Jewish shepherds. They were minding their business, faithfully tending to their responsibilities. They weren't seeking anything except the protection of their livelihood. They saw the angel and heard the voices of the heavenly hosts, and at once left to find the newborn Christ.

The other group was the Magi from the East, from as far away as Persia. These Gentiles were of a completely different faith, being a priestly class from the Zoroastrian religion. They were astrologers whose dedication to the study of their writings and what they thought the stars and planets told them was so great that they trekked 1,000 miles to confirm it. Chances are great that they did not see Jesus until at least a couple years later. These men were seekers. There was no special annunciation given to them: God spoke to them through their own learning. This gives me no end of encouragement.

Many quarters of the church nowadays, at least in America, hold instruction in and critical examination of our faith at arms' length; few denounce those pursuits outright, but most look sideways at it, fearful of becoming "puffed up", afraid that what they learn might make them want to live out the faith even less. They look at academic, liberal theologians and equate the first adjective with the second. What they don't do is acknowledge that there is definitely no shortage of liberals and libertines from among the unlearned masses as well. The issue is not of knowledge making the truth-seeking Christians "puffed up", but of satisfaction with an insufficient amount of the truth of God; this is equally a problem with the learned who are distracted by empty truths and with the ignorant who are content with what gets them their next experience. It is the truth of God that saves: belief in Christ's lordship and confession thereof are what matters, and even the "experience" side of the equation is dependent on antecedent knowledge of the existence of the thing to be experienced.

I sometimes envy the unquestioning, simple-trust sort of believers whom I know. They just believe and that's it: this sort of belief, while tending too far towards "blind faith" and utterly impossible to pass on to unbelievers, is apparently sufficient for their own lives and helps them worry less over details. Similarly, the shepherds, being Jewish, were privy to the honor of experiencing the angelic visitation; but don't forget that the point of the visitation was revelation, which is itself knowledge. God wants us to know so that we can experience. For this reason, God wishes to educate even those in the humblest circumstances. Those who seek, who delve deeper and deeper -- God is faithful to bring us the whole thousand miles to the same place. Thank God for that.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Technorati Tags: Christmas,, knowledge,, learning,, theology,, education

Preterists who deny a physical Resurrection of the Dead have been accused of being gnostic (because we supposedly believe that only spiritual reality matters and that the physical world is evil). Yet those who demand a destruction of the physical universe and the replacement with a spiritual new heavens and new earth are surely closer to this belief than are full preterists. We don't see a reason to believe that the earth and the physical universe will not sustain us into virtual perpetuity. Our strictly spiritual Kingdom is more likely to take over the realm of the physical as we apply the mandate for dominion in every area of our lives. Those looking forward to a restoration of the physical universe need look no further than the preterist's Kingdom of God made manifest in us, the sons of God, the co-heirs with Jesus.

Genesis 1:28 shows us the original intention God had for man: man was tasked with subduing the earth and ruling over it and its creatures. Now, think theoretically for a second. Was God thwarted in His plan? Was He forced to go back to the drawing board because man did something God knew he was going to do all along? Was the sum of human history a waste because no sooner did God give us the mandate, but we screwed up? Was God's experiment with a physical universe a dismal failure that He's been stuck with for millennia, while He sits up there and waits (for something or other) to wipe it off the map and forget the whole embarrassing experience? Poor God. Better luck next time!

This view is untenable for someone who believes that God is omnipotent and omniscient. So it's really no wonder that Calvin and others devoted especially to the concept of God's sovereignty should resort to the defense, "Well...God really wanted it that way! Yeah, He didn't fail: He planned the whole fiasc--, uh, glorious plan!"

I think, rather, that His plan will be fulfilled and that His first-century work was a new beginning. We see a similar pattern in the flood account. What happened after God wiped out the wicked with the Flood? He started again, with the same earth and the same animals, and the faithful; in fact, the only change was in the topology and the exclusion of the wicked from the land. That's what happened in AD 70. Noah, like Adam, was charged with populating the land with offspring and subduing the creation (Gen. 9:1-3, 7). So it is with us.

When Christendom has finally understood and embraced its reinvigorated Kingdom mandate, the physical world will reap the benefits. This goes for improvement in medical science: the world reshaped by the influence of Christianity has already done much in this direction, but there could be more. For instance, could Christians leading science in the far off future eventually essentially marginalize physical suffering, perhaps even going so far as to subjugate physical death? What about the environment? I don't just mean caring for it in the ecological sense, but being able to predict and manipulate even the weather -- sure, it sounds Star Trek, but my point is that the sky's the limit. In a few millennia, the fallen world as we know it may be a distant memory, fading away much like the mother's childbirth pain once she holds the newborn in her arms.

Is this fantasy?

The heavens and the earth have passed

The new has dawned, the night complete,

The day of judgment come. At last

The rule of Death dies in defeat.

The fear, the tears our fathers knew

Awaiting the Redeemer's call

Have dried, has fled. The Life broke through;

Death's victory was snatched withal.


All hope fulfilled and joy made whole

By overflowing life within,

Those purchased with His blood extol

With lips and lives purged from all sin

The mighty arm of Him Whose name

Renowned from depths to utmost height

Has justly earned its glorious fame

By forging endless day from night.


Thus every proud dominion must

Assuredly return to dust

While we, the ransomed, with our birth

Possess new heavens and new earth.





Next time on the Poetry Channel: Germanic alliterative verse. Yeah, we'll see
about that...

Come see my new blog, Undeception, to read this article. I'm giving WordPress a try.

The progression occurs something like this:

"That is appalling! I won't allow myself to even acknowledge its existence."
"Well, its increasing presence is making it harder to avoid thinking about it, so I'll act hostile toward it."
"Hostility isn't able to stave off the onslaught, and I'm miserable when I'm hostile. I'll ignore it."
"Ok, ignoring is hard to do for the same reason that pretending it wasn't there didn't work. I'll try to make sure it's marginalized by making derisive comments about it."
"Some of those derisive comments are pretty funny. I enjoy belittling it."
"I've gotten to where I find it quite entertaining to make light of it. No sense in getting too riled up about it."
"You know, it really is a joke after all. And to think I was so worked up about it at first!"

I have observed this process at work in many areas of life, but perhaps no more devastatingly than in the arena of morality. Premarital sex is one area in which this has happened. Homosexuality is definitely one that's just reached the last phase in the last decade or so. Of course, not everyone's on the same page (or phase) on those issues, and doubtless there are at any given time people at each phase.

We need to make sure we haven't gone through the above progression on important issues; it is, after all, a relief to stop boiling about something and just laugh about it. But maybe the solution isn't as much the mockery as the problem is the boiling in the first place. If we could "Vulcanize" our thoughts on these divisive issues (for non-Trekkies, if we could fortify our positions with rational arguments that minimize emotional responses), we would likely never exhaust ourselves with feigned ignorance and unsustainable emotion that turn themselves into the need to escape the fight. The kind of mockery this leads to is the faltering last line of defense against acceptance. It can also be a sign that the necessary step of reasoning was absent and that tumultuous emotion was given reason's place. We can't allow ourselves to get tired out beating the wind: when facing an idealogical foe, keeping calm will allow us to use our consecrated minds to hold the line. Maybe this is related to Paul's statement in Philippians 4:7, "And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

Samuel Adams: "He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man..."

Me: Hmmm...so, if we were able to flood our Congress with 535 Billy Graham clones, that might just fix our nation? Oops - sorry I interrupted you, Mr. Adams. Please do continue.

Samuel Adams: "...The sum of it all is, if we would most truly enjoy this gift of Heaven, let us become a virtuous people."

Me: Ahhh...I see...so what you're saying is that it takes more than just good Christian politicians to make an impact on America, right? Well, everybody knows our nation was founded as a Christian nation. Therefore, if we can just get back to the ideas you Founding Fathers had, the original form of government as you envisioned it, seems to me it'd fix everything. Why are you looking at me like that, Mr. President? Where am I going wrong here?

President John Adams: "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

All: Lord, help us.

Today I overheard someone pondering whether the pressures of the wrestling industry were what "got to" Chris Benoit and caused the atrocities he committed. I just shook my head.

Wrestling industries don't kill people. Wrestlers kill people.

I'm not trying to be funny here. People blame the desperation of poverty when poor people commit murder, the corruption of wealth when rich people commit murder, the rat-race of middle class life when the bourgeoisie commit murder. The only real common denominator is that we have disturbed people committing the murder in each situation. And even this doesn't appear to be particularly helpful, given that there are plenty of disturbed people who are poor, rich, or middle-class and yet somehow not murdering people. Obviously, there is more than one factor causing people to fly off the handle and do the unthinkable. Not only are the situations of each individual who makes those wrong sorts of choices infinitely more complex than one or two social factors, in the end I think that the primary blame cannot be placed anywhere but on the person whose internal moral composition does not respond correctly to the external stimuli that so many people cite as the chief factors in immoral behavior.

Ok, so let's blame the murderer's "internal moral composition". What factors are responsible for defects in that? As far as I can tell, the largest single determining factor for the formation of one's morality is parenthood. Nothing but chemically unstable mental conditions can account for a child growing up to be a murderer when the child's moral and loving parents both effectively communicate a healthy view of ethics to the child.

Yet parenting is not completely determinative, because there have been plenty of children with awful parents who have made their own decisions when they got older and ended up being adults of outstanding character. I still say that culpability comes down to the individual's in-born aptitude for morality. Only the Kingdom is able to compensate for such dangerous variation.

In a recent article on his website, Gary DeMar tries to pick a fight with a strawman to encourage his anti-evolutionist choir. This has bothered me so much that I had to write a response.

His main thrust comes at the end of the article in which he writes, "Atheist James A. Haught, writing in 2000 Years of Disbelief: Famous People with the Courage to Doubt, argues that it's irrational to believe in invisible 'things':
"For anyone scanning the past and surveying the current world scene, it is nearly impossible to find any outstanding person—except for popes, archbishops, kings, and other rulers—who says the purpose of life is to be saved by an invisible Jesus and to enter an invisible heaven. But it is easy to find many among the great who doubt this basic dogma."

DeMar remarks, "While belief in the invisible nature of God is a philosophical no-no, it's OK to believe in the invisibility of this 'evolution' entity that has supposedly created life out of non-life and has developed a moral code for us to live by."

There are no materialists who argue that believing in "invisible things" is irrational; read it again and you'll see that Haught's quote definitely doesn't say that. A process (such as the concept of biological evolution) is a way we as humans group, classify, and seek to explain actual physical, observable phenomena. Just because certain processes are not observable in real time does not mean they are invisible. No one with a functioning mind denies that processes exist simply because these processes are not physical, visible entities. Processes are always invisible - people and places (like Jesus and heaven) generally aren't. Believing in invisible things without any good reason is irrational (if not outright delusional), and the materialist argues that physical, visible evidence is the only good reason. They don't deny God because He is invisible, but because they do not see any physical evidence.

Let me put it this way. What is responsible for the changing of the seasons? A scientist will say, "The earth's revolution around the sun." Does the creationist say, "No, silly! Who's ever seen a 'Revolution'? God is responsible for the changing of the seasons"? Thankfully, most don't. Saying that God is responsible for establishing the physical processes that bring about the change of seasons is not inconsistent. There are, however, some that claim this position as a violation of Occam's razor, which is sometimes stated as, "All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one." The materialist says, "If all phenomena are physically explainable, then it is illogical and unnecessary to also superimpose a supernatural explanation." Unfortunately, creationists place themselves in the position of either marginalizing God or denying science. Materialists aren't inconsistent to believe in wind or the revolution of the earth around the sun, both of whose effects are observable, while denying the existence of a supreme being whose actions are arguably not observable by physical means. Creationists say that God's actions are observable in that many physical phenomena such as the diversity of life were caused directly by Him and not by natural processes. A creationist is forced to argue the untenable position that whenever a physical explanation for a phenomenon is discovered, God loses His right to claim that He is responsible for the phenomenon. The biological explanation of how a life is created (i.e., the joining of sperm and egg) removes God from the equation.

The materialist's application of Occam's razor in this instance is an inaccurate critique of the Christian position, however, since theology's role is to assign meaning to events, not to deny or replace scientific descriptions of how those events transpired. "Evolution is responsible" and "God is responsible" are completely unrelated and non-contradictory claims: one is physical and the other metaphysical. They have different domains and thus don't have to play by the same rules.

If you have scientific problems with evolution, bring them on. But this is a trumped up pseudo-philosophical argument. No self-respecting logician will say that "Evolution is responsible" and "God is responsible" are contradictory. The fact is that most evolutionists would agree with this. Anyone who understand science knows that it cannot and should never be used to prove or disprove the metaphysical; it is only designed and equipped to explore the physical universe.

One of my main problems with DeMar and most creationists is that at times they appear to jump at whatever appears on the surface to be problematic about an evolutionary claim, and rather than digging in to see the reasoning behind the evolutionary position, they try to play gotcha and hope no one notices their bluff. This convinces no one who actually has some rudimentary understanding of evolutionary theory, but it does indeed excite those who already want to think that evolution is a ridiculous, preposterous, absolutely fantastic delusion.

For instance, another of DeMar's pseudo-rational responses was to the claim of Dr. Robert Henkin of the Taste and Smell Clinic in Washington that, "Evolution taught humans to smell. . . . When people can't smell, they can't taste and they end up getting poisoned by food." DeMar retorts, "What happened before animals could develop the necessary smell mechanism to detect poisons? They would have died. So how could they have evolved if they kept dying from ingesting poisons?" This is "logic" borrowed from the Intelligent Design movement. This disturbs me, because I, who have no science degree or training, can argue the evolutionary position based solely on what I learned in my cursory attempts to refute evolutionary theory and ensure that it really was as ludicrous as creationists claim (a pursuit at which I was abashed to admit that I failed).

1) We have no way of knowing at which point some things became harmful to an organism's physiology, or for that matter when the different animal groups that were susceptible to poison came into contact with those poisons.
2) He makes the common but inexcusable mistake of assuming that all the organisms of a given population came into contact with the poison.
3) Even taking on this last assumption that all individuals were exposed to/ingested some sort of poison, a major problem remains with DeMar's assumption that all animals were without a mechanism with which to smell across the board at the same time. There is no basis for this assumption: actually, as a function of typical intraspecies genetic variation, some individuals in a population likely carried the genetic sequencing that, although originally not developed specifically for smell, produced a rudimentary sensory response to harmful chemicals that has developed into what we call the sense of smell. The individuals within a species that carried this genetic ability survived and passed it on to their progeny, weeding out the gene pool of the species so that eventually it only contained those who could detect poison ("survival of the fittest", anyone?).
4) An even more basic understanding of evolutionary theory that he somehow missed (ignored?) would have explained that any species that did not include any individuals with a poison-detecting mechanism did in fact die out! The ones that did survived. Is this really hard to understand?

I understand that there are atheists with an anti-theism axe to grind (i.e., they don't just believe there is no God, but want to prove it definitively) who love to use naturalism and materialism as a way to paint God as a superfluous and excisable bed-time story. Let's fight that erroneous mentality, but not by senselessly and illogically demonizing the innately benign tool of evolutionary theory that just happens to be the tool of choice for those anti-theists.

Picture the children of old being taught by their elders the stories of their ancestors and the history of their faith. Imagine them with wide eyes as they absorbed and digested into their consciousness the beliefs of their forefathers. See them attentively listening to their living forbears passing down the priceless heirlooms they themselves had received as children. Hear the reverent tones hushed almost to a whisper on points of greatest magnitude, a manner that conveyed the significance and mystery of what was being shared and drew each child's attention to the fact that they were being let in on the greatest secrets of the universe. Useless would be any boring lectures about virtues stripped of the relevance that a simple story brings to them: not many children would sit still if they realized that these stories were actually "education" - the molding of their core values.

Now flash forward a few thousand years and observe how their children's children's children are teaching their children today.

Today there looms a threat to the church's own appreciation of the Truth of God, an outgrowth of which is the abandonment of the ancient form of transmission of truth to posterity, the spurning of the way of instruction illustrated in my first paragraph, an institution that more primitive cultures throughout time have relied on to keep a continuity of values and beliefs. Traditions such as passing on stories of cultural significance act as societal cement; yet we throw all the gravel in there with a few blocks of chocolate, and wonder to see our kids with sweet teeth and souring health, and an eroding society. We have descended into the perilous practice of educating (or not educating) our children in ways that communicate the profundity and significance of our beliefs. We have fired the tutor of generations past and hired singing vegetables.

No, this isn't a polemic solely or even chiefly against that show per se. I indict the whole juvenile "Sunday School should be fun" movement that emaciates the stories of the Bible into entertaining, fantastic, and, most importantly, cute stories for children. Is it any wonder that kids grow up and recall the David and Goliath and Moses-in-a-basket stories as kids' stuff on par with the fairy tales der Brüder Grimm?

This, a quite recent development, has proven sufferable to a point, because as long as parents believe the stories are divine in origin, their children stand a good chance to absorb some of the respect for these stories. What happens, however, when you have kids growing up laughing at the stories? Worse yet, ignoring the meaning of the stories because they are busy laughing at the jokes and gags (most which produce laughter without real understanding, because they are intended by the creators as inside jokes with the parents), not to mention the demotion of the forefathers of our faith that comes from being depicted as various flora, fauna, or silly humans. This may seem innocuous and good-natured fun, and is obviously formulated to convey the truth of the Bible in a form palatable for young children with short attention spans. See, we have so many non-biblical stories that are humorous and entertaining, yet conspicuously devoid of meaning, that we assume any normal kid would choose to listen to them rather than to dull and (heaven forbid!) serious lectures.

Is this assumption correct? Has our culture made such an effort to avoid inconvenient meaning that the Bible must take on the guise of irrelevance in order to become relevant?

I recognize the need for faith-based media, including media that entertains. I also believe that Christians such as Phil Vischer are involved in their productions as their way of lighting a candle instead of cursing the darkness. No doubt it is infinitely better to set your kids down in front of VeggieTales than letting them watch 90% of secular kids' media, because the worldviews of the latter are usually toxic and antithetical to our faith. But eating large quantities of cholesterol-laden fried chicken is similarly less harmful than even small doses of plutonium; although the pitfalls are vastly different in terms of how soon they manifest themselves, nonetheless both are potentially life-threating. Bob, Larry, and the like can be less harmful if accompanied by an otherwise healthy diet of parents living the life and communicating the importance of the Bible. But woe be unto those unchurched kids who went to see Jonah in the theaters; they probably went away thinking, "Gee, that was a funny story! The Bible must have some great whoppers in it!" To say nothing of unbelieving parents and older kids who look at such tom-foolery as a representative specimen of the whole Judeo-Christian faith system.

I think a lot of this stems from the fact that when we grow older and gain a firmer grasp on the things we hold important, we tend to approach those things with a familiarity that is not in itself harmful. With adults who take the faith seriously, there is probably room for a little levity here and there even on theological matters (although one wouldn't know it by reading the New Testament!). However, our children equate silliness with...well, silliness, and not with matters of colossal importance. I realize that the simplicity of some of the stories make them ideal for telling to children, and we should of course tell them to children. But we must make the conscious effort not to downgrade the stories into something so cartoony that the children grow up wondering why their parents took them so seriously. We cannot produce entertainment masquerading as theology masquerading as entertainment as an expression of our faith absent any of the requisite sobriety, in the blind hope that there will always be parents there who can remove the resultant cloak over the importance of our faith.

I suppose that in a broader sense, my question is, “Where's the reverence?” Is humor the fourth person of the modern Godhead? I get sick of seeing people trying to read levity into Jesus' sermons: could it just be that the Truth of God is not a laughing matter? that there is a reason we are explicitly shown in the Gospels the Son of God as angry, weeping, and overall just drop-dead serious about His mission, but never once depicted as laughing or even smiling? This is not to say that He never did those things, but I think it is our cultural conditioning that causes us to look for those things even while He is talking about the most momentous subjects imaginable. The apostles, likewise, treated the faith as a matter of life and death. You'd be hard-pressed to point out even one funny analogy, insightful wisecrack, or hardly a wry observation in any of the epistles. Are we to conclude that people in the first century were not fond of humor? Probably they were less so than we, but I doubt that is why we do not see moments of light-heartedness in the New Testament.

No, the real reason is that they took these things more seriously than we do. We in today's Church are "amusing ourselves to death" in classic Postman fashion. Indeed, it's hard to laugh about silly ol' Jonah and his pal the "whale" if we recognize that 21st-century Christians play into the type of a prophet of God going AWOL to avoid the path God intended. Granted, Jonah didn't head for Tarshish in order to have a good time. But nevertheless, we, like Jonah, are self-centered enough to be unaware of or unconcerned about the gravity of our mission and are unmindful of the importance God puts upon it. If reverence and relative solemnity when dealing with the Truth of God are not culturally relevant, it is not the Truth but the “amuse me first” culture that will perish. I hope we begin to make sure our children understand the importance of our faith, and not tie it to that sinking ship.

My wife receives an email newsletter from Lisa Cauble née Whelchel (known from the sitcom "The Facts of Life"). My wife shared this with me, and I agree with the author that it is appropriate that we never lose sight of the flip side of our victorious faith.

Cauble Family 2006 Christmas Letter

Dear friends

Is it just me? Am I simply incredibly small and insecure, or do you sometimes want to throw up after reading certain family Christmas letters too? I mean, isn't this the time of year when we are supposed to be sending good tidings of great joy? After reading a litany of child prodigy feats and perfect family success stories, I often feel like pond scum. Oh, and by the way, "Merry Christmas."

Perhaps it is a knee-jerk reaction, but I decided to write this year's family Christmas letter from slightly below the surface of the pond. Although my whole family is onboard with this idea, it is probably only fair that I begin with me and my "accomplishments" in 2006.

For starters, I gained ten more pounds this year and went up two pant sizes. The bathroom scales hadn't seen those high digits since my third trimesters. The publishing company I'm currently signed with sold to a publisher that turned me down two years ago and they still don't want me. My last book way undersold projections and is probably available at your local bookstore on the clearance table.

This year, Steve finally decided we could no longer ignore the financial woes associated with the fact that we both stink at handling money. We got all of our back taxes cleared up, and we are ready to tackle the debt we got into when we couldn't get enough women to attend our MomTime Getaway events back in 2003. This living on a budget is for the birds.

Tucker fell in love for the first time and, subsequently, experienced his first broken heart. After six months, he is still recovering from the break-up. On a happier note, he finally completed his geometry curriculum. It took him a year-and-a-half, but I'm sure all those theorems will come in handy in the life of a musician.

Haven is no longer part of the student ministry worship team at church. She was replaced this year by a drummer with fancier fills. She received a "D" on her first English Lit essay, complete with notes from the teacher like, "Don't use such lame sources" and "Did you even read the book?"

We are thrilled to report that after three years, Clancy finally made a friend here in Texas. She played "Juliet" in her homeschool academy's school play last year, only to earn a bit part in this year's production. After playing the bass guitar for three years in the junior high worship band, she's a bit bummed about the fact that she's not yet good enough to play on the high school worship team.

Donut, our family dog, no longer has the run of the house. She has been relegated to a pen in the kitchen with a doggie door to the backyard. After failing two obedience schools, we resigned ourselves to the fact that she just wasn't going to get this whole house-training thing down. As soon as we get this whole budget-training thing down, we'll replace all the carpet in the house.

Now, don't you feel better? Merry Christmas! In my opinion, this letter more accurately reflects the spirit of Christmas. No, stay with me here a minute, I'm serious. Why did Jesus come to earth in the first place? Because we desperately need a Savior! We are fat, yet so empty. We owe a debt we cannot pay. We are not good enough in our own strength. He came to heal the brokenhearted. He calls us friend. He came to set free those of us who are bound because of the mess we've made of our lives.

We aren't the first ones to celebrate Christmas as primarily the birth of the King of kings, conveniently skipping the whole "Suffering Servant" role of the promised Messiah. Yes, Jesus will reign and rule forever, but the "good news of great joy" that the angel declared to the shepherds on the very first Christmas was that a Savior was born. I need that Messiah this year!

How about you? Have you, like me, been tempted to believe that we will be better witnesses for Jesus in our Christmas letters if we are living victoriously, reigning over our circumstances, and ruling with authority, as befits a child of the King? If that is where you have lived this year, then praise God, you have enjoyed an early taste of heaven.

If, on the other hand, you have lost or failed or died or cried or experienced any other symptom of humanity, then celebrate Christmas with me this year. The birth of the baby Jesus, God in human form. Our High Priest who sympathizes with our weaknesses. The King who wore a crown of thorns. We have eternity to reign with the King of kings. Today I need a Savior. That is the reason He was born. This is why we can celebrate no matter what kind of year we've had.

Christmas blessings,


Steve, Lisa, Tucker, Haven, Clancy and Donut Cauble

This is not original to me, but it's so good I wanted to post it for you all.

"For My Politically Correct Friends:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit,
my best wishes for an environmentally conscious,
socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive,
gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice
holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable
traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice,
or secular practices of your choice, with respect for
the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of
others, or their choice not to practice religious or
secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally
successful, personally fulfilling and medically
uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the
generally accepted calendar year 2007, but not without
due respect for the calendars of choice of other
cultures whose contributions to society have helped
make America great. Not to imply that America is
necessarily greater than any other country nor the
only America in the Western Hemisphere. And without
regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical
ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the
wishee.

By accepting these greetings you are accepting these
terms:

This greeting is subject to clarification or
withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no
alteration to the original greeting. It implies no
promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the
wishes for herself or himself or others, and is void
where prohibited by law and is revocable at the sole
discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to
perform as expected within the usual application of
good tidings for a period of one year or until the
issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever
comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of
this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole
discretion of the wisher."

For My Other Friends:

Here's wishing all of you a Merry Christmas and a
Happy New Year!"

I believe this stirring hymn stands as a call to the Church. We have a message of comfort and peace because the war is over. Our calling is not as warriors but as heralds of a new age.



1. Comfort, comfort, ye My people,
Speak ye peace, thus saith our God;
Comfort those who sit in darkness,
Mourning 'neath their sorrows' load.
Speak ye to Jerusalem
Of the peace that waits for them;
Tell her that her sins I cover
And her warfare now is over.

2. Yea, her sins our God will pardon,
Blotting out each dark misdeed;
All that well deserved His anger
He no more will see or heed.
She hath suffered many a day,
Now her griefs have passed away;
God will change her pining sadness
Into ever-springing gladness.

3. Hark, the Herald's voice is crying
In the desert far and near,
Bidding all men to repentance
Since the Kingdom now is here.
Oh, that warning cry obey!
Now prepare for God a way;
Let the valleys rise to meet Him
And the hills bow down to greet Him.

4. Make ye straight what long was crooked,
Make the rougher places plain;
Let your hearts be true and humble,
As befits His holy reign.
For the glory of the Lord
Now o'er earth is shed abroad,
And all flesh shall see the token
That His Word is never broken.

As a bit of a side note, I think this last verse contains an indictment on many modern Christians: because God reigns, and because we're fortunate enough to know Him, we tend to jump to the conclusion that we're pretty hot stuff. Paradoxically, it is the Church above others that should understand the humility that comes from knowing our position in relation to our reigning God.