Posted on Wednesday,

3 Quick Observations About The Same-Sex Marriage Supreme Court Decision

By now you have no doubt heard that the supreme court ruled 5-4 in Obergefell vs. Hodges that same-sex marriage is a constitutional right and is now the law of the land. (read the full decision here)

As a Christian how are we to think about this? To be honest, this decision did not surprise me, but I was disappointed. I had held out some hope that the constitution and not the winds of public opinion would win the day. But that was not to be.

3 Quick Observations About The Same-Sex Marriage Supreme Court Decision

1) The world has not ended, but make no mistake this will have significant cultural impact. There are 2 sides of this balance beam we can’t afford to fall off of. First, we need to remember that Christianity is still true, regardless of what is going on in a particular cultural moment. Our hope is fixed in Christ, not a cultural majority. We have an opportunity to love and engage. Let’s not miss that.

The other way not to react to this news is to say it won’t effect me and my marriage and everything will continue on as it has. That is not true. And that will become more painfully evident in the days ahead–especially for children.

2) Whatever your views on same-sex marriage, the constitution lost–and that is not good news for the United States of America. While I am not a legal scholar, I have taken the time to try to digest the issues at play here. What remains clear from the 4 dissenting justices is that in the words of Chief Justice Roberts, “The majority’s decision is an act of will, not legal judgment. The right it announces has no basis in the Constitution or this Court’s precedent.” The supreme court acted as a “super-legislature” in this case imposing its will rather than finding a rational basis for it in the constitution.

This may feel good (in the moment) if you happen to find yourself in the majority of current cultural opinion, but opinions change. You may (whatever your view) find yourself in the minority opinion at odds with 5 supreme court justices as the constitution is shaped to fit current trends. The whole point of a fixed document that anchors our country is so that it is really difficult to change laws and amend the constitution. That is being bypassed by judicial activism when it suits the court. That’s not good news for the rule of law in a free society. For more analysis, read here.

3) More than ever it is important to have courage, stand for religious liberty for everyone, and promote and embody true tolerance. There is a lot here. But the bottom line is you and I as Christ-followers must affirm what Jesus affirmed about God’s created order (cf. Matt. 19 as he cited Gen. 1-2). We must also not be silent. We must stand our ground no matter what comes. We need to affirm true tolerance where people can disagree with one another about things that really matter and still love and respect one another (read more about this here). People we may disagree with are not the enemy. They are made in the image of God and worthy of dignity and respect. Here are 2 books that need to be must reading.

– Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom by Ryan Anderson

– The Silencing: How the Left is Killing Free Speech by Kirsten Powers

Here is a talk that my friend John Stonestreet gave recently at Impact 360 Institute entitled: Same-Sex Marriage What Now (Video). It is well worth a watch.

Now is not the time to lose heart. It is time to think, love, and engage.

A Quick Response to the Who Are You To Judge Objection? (read more)

If you found this post helpful, you would enjoy How to Respond to the “That’s Just Your Interpretation” Objection

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Posted on Thursday,

Should Christians Be For Or Against Culture?

When speaking on the topic of faith and culture, I usually begin with a pop quiz. I ask people to turn to the person sitting next to them and see if they can come up with a definition of culture, and then decide whether Christians should be for or against it. As you can probably guess, the responses are all over the map. By the way, how would you answer those two questions?

Why is this? Well, to be honest, culture may be one of the hardest words to define in the English language because it is used in many different ways. But if we don’t have a clear picture of what culture is, then it becomes extremely difficult to determine what Christianity’s relationship to it ought to be.

In short, we need a robust theology and philosophy of culture that we can understand and then communicate to those around us. In this post, I want to unpack and clarify some concepts that will be essential to establishing our biblical basis for engaging culture.

Culture is as old as humankind is, but the word derives from the Latin cultura and colere, which describe the tending or cultivating of something, typically soil and livestock. In the eighteenth century, it would come to apply to the cultivation of ideas (education) and customs (manners). Then there are sociological and anthropological definitions, which are helpful in their own way but involve hard- to-remember phrases such as “transmitted and inherited patterns and symbols.”

Theologian Kevin Vanhoozer suggests:

“Culture is the environment and atmosphere in which we live and breathe with others.”

That’s good.

Philosopher Garry DeWeese helpfully unpacks this concept a bit more by defining culture as a

“shared system of stories and symbols, beliefs and values, traditions and practices, and the media of communication that unite a people synchronically (at a given time) and diachronically (through history).”

The most transferable way I have found to summarize what culture is comes from Andy Crouch: “Culture is what people make of the world.” In other words, people interact and organize while taking all the raw materials of planet Earth and doing something with them.

This covers everything from microchips to BBQ, computers to cathedrals, music composition to the development of law and government, city planning to education, and entertainment to Facebook. How people communicate, work, travel, order their familial and societal lives, and create technology are all artifacts of culture. And since Christians are people too, we are necessarily involved in the creation of culture. There is no such thing as a culture-free Christianity.

So we clearly can’t be against culture in this sense because Christians, as part of humanity, were given the mandate (in Genesis 1:27 – 28) to make something of the world.

I will have more to say on this in the days and weeks ahead as we explore what it means for us to live faithfully in a post-Christian culture.

How do you think Christians should relate to culture? I’d love to hear from you. Please leave a comment below.

Would you like to explore the relationship of Christianity and Culture further? I have written more in depth on that here.

If you enjoyed this post, then you would like 8 Things Christians Must Understand About Our Cultural Moment.

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Posted on Wednesday,

How to Respond to the Violent Old Testament God Objection in 10 Minutes [Podcast]

Is the God of the Old Testament violent and bloodthirsty? Did God really command genocide? Why did Israel attack the Canaanites? These are just a few of the tough questions I tackle in this episode of the think Christianly podcast. Learn how to respond to one of the most challenging and emotional objections to Christianity in under 10 minutes.

Check out my other podcasts – Subscribe with iTunes I RSS

Do you want more confidence in defending the reliability and authority of the Bible? – CLICK HERE

Is the Bible Sexist, Racist, Homophobic, and Genocidal? (Get on Kindle for only .99 cents)

Faith Crashers: Why Does God Kill People in the Old Testament? (Read the Christian Post article I was interviewed for)

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Posted on Tuesday,

How to Respond to the “That’s Just Your Interpretation” Objection

When it comes to having conversations about controversial spiritual and moral matters you can usually count on one thing for sure, namely, that someone will inevitably raise the “that’s just your interpretation” objection. This is especially true if the Bible is involved.

You’ve seen this happen before right? Once someone throws out the “that’s just your interpretation” line, the conversation comes to a screeching halt. Again, this usually happens when a moral or religious topic is brought up like “abortion is wrong” or “Jesus is the only way of salvation.” Perhaps you have found yourself in a conversation like that and thought you were making progress only to be dismissed with a slogan. What do you do?

Two Options For Engaging This Objection

There are a few options on how you can engage here.

The first option is you can get into a passionate (but pointless) yelling match where you go back and forth screaming “no it doesn’t” / “yes it does” for 30 minutes or so (note: I didn’t say this first one was a good option).

Or you can chose option number two where you can try to move the conversation forward by asking a well placed question. This will be much more effective because typically people throw down the “that’s just your interpretation” slogan to dismiss you and your point of view without an argument.

At this point, you can clarify what they mean by asking, “Are you saying you don’t like my interpretation or that you think it’s false?” If they think it’s false, great. You can then ask them the reasons they have for thinking that it’s false and have a productive spiritual conversation. If you need some help in learning how to know “which interpretation of the Bible is correct” then start here.

“I Don’t Like Your Point of View”

However, more often than not it will become obvious that this person simply doesn’t like the implications of your view. Maybe if your view is correct, they might have to alter a behavior they enjoy or change their mind about a controversial social issue.

Philosopher Paul Copan suggests a reasonable response in situations like these: “There are many truths that I myself don’t like or find difficult to accept, but not liking them doesn’t give me the freedom to reject them. I have to accept that they are true.”

Sometimes the most loving thing you can do in a spiritual or moral conversation is help someone discover that reality is indifferent to our preferences. The truth about God and the way we flourish as human begins is too important to discover to allow it to be dismissed by an uncritically examined slogan.

So the next time you feel like yelling when a spiritual and moral disagreement shows up, just take a deep breath and ask a question.

If you found this post helpful, you would enjoy “How to have a conversation about Bible contradictions.”

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Posted on Wednesday,

Newsweek Attacks the Bible…Are You Ready to Respond?

It would be hard to find a more timely article showing why I wrote my new book Questioning the Bible: 11 Major Challenges to the Bible’s Authority than the one recently published by Newsweek. It is filled with claims–that unless explored and cross examine–will seem persuasive to many readers. It also is written with a good deal of emotion and anger it seems. Here is just a taste to get a feel for the tone of the article:

“They are God’s frauds, cafeteria Christians who pick and choose which Bible verses they heed with less care than they exercise in selecting side orders for lunch. They are joined by religious rationalizers—fundamentalists who, unable to find Scripture supporting their biases and beliefs, twist phrases and modify translations to prove they are honoring the Bible’s words….”

So am I mad this was written? No, it’s a free country. Let the best ideas win.

Am I surprised? No. This happens every Christmas and Easter now.

How Should We Respond?

This is yet another opportunity presented by our culture to calmly, gently, and rationally explain why we believe and expose some of the slogans and misunderstandings that get applied to Christians and Christianity (1 Peter 3:15).