A MATH PROBLEM

Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, has been in the news for a while. It's a public institution, founded in 1967 and it's well-known for its entrance requirements: anyone with a pulse can get in. (They have a 97% admittance rate.) This means that even with my high school algebra and geometry grades, I would have been welcomed and deemed a scholar at Evergreen State.

Evergreen State is infamous for being radicalized, but it pretty much started out that way because, at its founding, it attracted a lot of the hippie element, but it has become even more radicalized over the years to the point of campus chaos.

JUST HOW RADICALIZED?

The campus has become so chaotic that there are certain spaces, called "Safe Spaces," in which you aren't allowed to say these nine words: "Donald Trump is the president of the United States." Now, we should note that, whatever your politics, the undeniable and certifiable fact is, Donald Trump is the president of the United States. But at Evergreen State, in those designated areas, students can't state that fact. One congressman said, "That's scary."

It's like creating several areas on campus in which you can't say, "2+2=4."

THOSE HISTORY MAJORS

One of the annoying things about history majors is that they always point to some current event and with a supercilious attitude and in a condescending tone, say, "That's nothing new; back in 1774 . . ."

Then they talk down to us, telling us that the same thing at which you're amazed has happened many times before. History majors love what Harry Truman said, "The only thing new to you is the history you don't know." (Yes, that's true, but irritating.)

The history major will point out that something similar happens under all totalitarian regimes. In North Korea you can't say anything bad about the leader. You can't even say, "North Korea" in North Korea. You can't say anything sarcastic. You can't ask, "When was the leader born?" (There are many other things--you can't own blue jeans or a Bible. 80 people were taken to a stadium and publicly executed for owning Bibles. A journalist was executed for making a typographical error.)

There's something else about our culture: you can't question or criticize or point out any flaws in the theory of evolution. The theory resides like many pastors, six feet above contradiction. The theory, to apply Cassius' remark about Julius Caesar, "Bestrides the narrow world like a Colossus." The reason is obvious--without evolution, fallen man is left with only one option: creation. He does NOT want to go there because creation means a Creator and a Creator means accountability.

Back in the 1st century AD, there was something you couldn't say: "Jesus is Lord." This was because the state religion was all bound up with Emperor worship. Emperor worship was what held the far-flung Empire together, so Christians who wouldn't worship the Emperor's image, but instead would say, "Jesus is Lord," were treasonous. A totalitarian state can't tolerate any authority higher than itself.

WHAT ABOUT IT?

One wonders: in those safety zones at Evergreen State, could you say, "Jesus is Lord"? Could you recite John 3:16? Could you tell the story of Jesus? Could you distribute Bibles? Could you wear a T-shirt that said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved"? Could you wear a shirt with a cross on it? Could you state the name and office of the current vice-president?

George Orwell said that true freedom is the freedom to say, "2+2=4." That is, true freedom is the freedom to state the obvious.

TALK ABOUT SNATCHING AWAY!

A pastor is preaching on man's sin problem and our need to submit to God’s plan for obtaining righteousness. He points out that we can’t save ourselves, that we can’t work our way to heaven, that the righteousness man needs to get to heaven is a gift through faith in Christ.

Then he comes to his invitation to the unbeliever, saying, “There are two things that get you into heaven: The blood of Christ and the instructions of God to guide us and both require trust, surrender, faith, and obedience on our part. We can’t save ourselves, we need the blood of forgiveness and we need God’s instructions for guidance."

At this point, the discerning reader might become a bit concerned over the statement, "We need God's instruction for guidance," so he holds his full approval in abeyance until he, in fairness, hears him out, and when he hears him say, "and both require trust, surrender, faith, and obedience on our part. We can’t save ourselves, we need the blood of forgiveness and we need God’s instructions for guidance," mental red flags are flying all over the place.

THEN COMES THE INVITATION

After a few more comments, he comes to the invitation time and to introduce that time, he brings the listener a list of things he must do:

1. Trust the Lord Jesus.

2. Be baptized. (“Baptism,” he says, “is our appeal to the Lord to cleanse us by His blood.”)

3. Obediently follow God’s instructions.(The only "instructions" are, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.")

4. Turn to the Lord Jesus. (This is vague.)

5. Repent—"Turn away from sin, renounce all vain things you trusted in before, renounce the love and practice of sin in order to turn to the Lord." (His definition of "repent" is faulty and he's imported into the word meanings it does not have. "Repent" means "change your mind." At this point, he's defined what he means by "Turn to the Lord Jesus." There are a multiplicity of problems which surface at this point--no one can turn away from sin, the preacher included. He has sinned and will continue to sin even after salvation. He's imposing the impossible requirement of "renouncing the love and practice of sin.")

6. Confess the Lord Jesus with your mouth. (By this, people usually mean, "Come forward down the aisle." This requirement is coming from his misunderstanding of Rom. 10:9-10 and turning that text into a requirement for salvation not found in the Gospel of John, a book written for the purpose of evangelism.)

PURLOINED! 

Talk about "snatching the gospel away!" (Luke 8:12) The speaker himself has snatched the good news away by loading it with works, when he'd just said that salvation was a free gift.

All of the above serves as a cautionary tale for us to be more and more and more discerning. Had the reader stopped reading with we "need to submit to God's plan for obtaining righteousness," and had he stopped with "the blood of Christ gets you into heaven," and had he stopped with "We can't work our way to heaven," he might have thought all was well. But such was not to be.

We always need to require the writer or the speaker to nail things down--to inquire as to the specifics, to keep asking questions to make certain that when he's writing or speaking of trusting Christ, what does he mean by that? Is he speaking of trusting Christ alone by faith alone, or are there additions such as the aforementioned?

RED FLAGS

The additions of works to faith alone in Christ alone are numerous and in error:

“Give your heart to Christ,” “Give your heart to Jesus,” “Surrender all,” “Pray the sinner's prayer,” “Turn the direction of your life over to God,” “Put your all on the altar,” “Make Jesus Lord of your life,” “Confess all your sins,” “Forsake all your sins,” “Take Jesus into your heart,” “Ask Jesus to come into your heart,” “Make the great commitment,” and “Follow Jesus.”

If you are attending and thereby supporting a ministry or a church that corrupts the good news in the aforementioned ways, you need to drop everything and leave immediately. "They have a good youth program," "They have an excellent nursery," "They're in a good location," "Their music is excellent," or, "The preacher is nice" are not reasons for staying and supporting their leavening the gospel of grace with works.

Find and associate with those who understand grace; learn from and encourage them.


   

SPEAKING AND WRITING CHRISTIANLY

Just when we think that what passes for discourse these days has reached its nadir, someone says or writes something that proves us wrong. To see the truth of this, try (I know it's hard) to watch an awards show coming from Hollywood. To listen to what the glitterati say when the platform is theirs is to listen language which was segregated to the gutters of America not so long ago. That language, thanks to the cultural permission given for its use in movies, TV, and in print, is now vomited from the mouths of men, women, teens, and children with impunity. Spend a day in the public school system and it'll blister your ears and sensibilities, or so I'm told by reputable and disgusted teachers. It comes from politicians, academics, writers, and A and B List celebrities. It's endless.

But this is not discourse and it's not an evidence of critical thinking. Which brings us to our subject: what is critical thinking as reflected in speaking and writing? 

Being critical doesn't make a person a critical thinker. Far from it. Anyone can be critical of anything and everything. Such people don't make for boon companions and wind up wondering why they have no friends, when they've spent their lives criticizing everybody and everything.  

Critical thinking begins with an attitude: humility. The critical thinker is keenly aware that his knowledge is limited and finite, that even when he knows the truth, he knows that he doesn't always know the best way to get it across to others.

The critical thinker understands that he's not Elijah having audibly heard from God with a message to thunder from Mt. Carmel. Too many pastors take as their model the Old Testament prophets, including John the Baptist, and not Peter who wrote, "And all of you, you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble." He also wrote: "But sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence."

The critical thinker is a reader and a particular kind of reader--he reads the best expressions of those whose viewpoints oppose his. If he reads the worst and most poorly presented presentations of an opposing viewpoint, it tends to make him self-righteousness, arrogant and to characterize his opponent wrongly. When he reads the best, it will cause him to be fair and learn something. It will enable him to see where the one with an opposing view is wrong, as well as why he's wrong. It will strengthen his convictions in the process.

Such a practice makes the critical thinker passionate "in the advancement of his ideas, flexible in the way he proposes them, and impervious to threats, mockery, or scorn." (David French)

One other aspect of a critical thinker is that he doesn't engage in hyperbole, wild exaggeration, and speculation. This is the bane of way too many Christian speakers and writers. Many were born in the superlative case. For sermonic fodder, everything becomes a crisis, everything is transformed into an emergency, everything is something to be enraged about, everything is the worst it's ever been. [For example, when speaking of the division in our country, we often hear, "We're more divided than we've ever been!" But that statement fails to take into account the War Between the States in which the South left the Union and the North invaded them for it.]

Exaggerations abound from all sides: there's a "the war on women." Really? A war? If you oppose a nationalized health service, then, "You want to kill old people." If you oppose same-sex marriage, then you hate those who don't.

Speaking of speculation, when the 9-11 attacks occurred, "The Revs. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson set off a minor explosion of their own when they asserted on television that an angry God had allowed the terrorists to succeed in their deadly mission because the United States had become a nation of abortion, homosexuality, secular schools, and courts."

The question is, "How do they know that?" How can they make such a pronouncement? As R. Albert Mohler Jr, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, said, "There is no doubt that America has accommodated itself to so many sins that we should always fear God's judgment and expect that in due time that judgment will come. But we ought to be very careful about pointing to any circumstance or any specific tragedy and say that this thing has happened because this is God's direct punishment."

The critical thinker will have a sense of what's an "emergency" and what's "the worst," and what's a "war." He will measure his words and make them precise and balanced.

May his tribe increase!

THE PERFECT MOVIE

There's this movie out and about all over the country and it's the perfect example of a world-system movie. But before we get to the how and why, we need to take a brief look at what we mean by "the world-system."

The Bible uses the word kosmos to describe Satan's arrangement of the inhabited earth. "The kosmos is the evil world system that's pitted itself against God and His Word. "This is how John uses the word five times in I John in 2:15-17). He continues to use “world” in this sense in 3:1, 13, 17." (Paul Martin Henebury) John consistently uses the word to describe the rebellious, autonomous, and spiritually darkened world-system of fallen mankind. A pithy definition of kosmos is that the world-system (kosmos) is an arrangement under the control and direction of Satan that leaves God out (I John 5:19).

THE WORLD SYSTEM'S PERFECT MOVIE: "ADRIFT"

We might think that the rating for the perfect world-system movie would be those of the "R" variety, but such is not necessarily the case. "Adrift" is rated PG-13. The plot of the movie is based on a true story: a couple who know their way around a sailboat hit a vicious, rip-roaring storm in the Pacific, a big huge beast of a storm, wrecking the boat. The wrecked vessel is taking on water, the mast is broken, and the radio won't work. The food is running low and the water supply isn't all that great either.

As the days progress, it's all looking hopeless. Those who could help don't know where the boat is; it's difficult to keep it on course, and day after day, week after week are passing. The boat is in the Pacific for 41 days. Death is imminent.

THIS IS WHERE THE WORLD SYSTEM COMES INTO PLAY

During those 41 days, no one prays, no one reads from the Bible, and there's not one mention of God. It would seem that most normal people would pray, don't you think? At least once? Even the atheist in the foxhole? But no. Never. Not in the movies.

We might wonder if there was prayer during the 41 day ordeal, but if there was, the movie censored it completely. This is the way of the world--"The arc of the moral universe [of the world system] bends toward crushing all resistance." (Rich Lowery) Totally. Completely. It takes no prisoners. To oppose and disagree with the world system is to court financial and personal destruction.

This is what makes "Adrift" the perfect world system movie. The writers, directors, and producers leave God out. The audience won't think of what's not there there, only what is there. Because of that, they're manipulating us and they're teaching us the theology of the world system. Most people get their theology from the movies.

This movie isn't atypical; it's very normal--although 40% of the people in America are regular church goers, when Sunday rolls around in a movie, there's no church attender and no church building visible.

Adrift in the Pacific Ocean for 41 days and nobody prays? That's a fantasy, but that's what the movies of the world system are all about, fantasy masquerading as life. Unfortunately, as the saying goes, life imitates art. 

A TRIP TO SILLYLAND

The merry month of May brings the end of "April showers" and the threshold month for June brides. But the merry month also brings something else: graduations. It used to be that said ceremonies meant that the graduates had accomplished something, and in so doing, they got to graduate twice, once from high school and once from college. But now graduations proliferate and have become silly.

Today, we hold graduation ceremonies for accomplishing little to nothing. We have graduation exercises for children who complete the daunting requirements of prekindergarten, kindergarten, and the 5th grade, so such a scholar has the opportunity to be honored by at least five separate graduations before he's through matriculating.

SILLY LAND

And some of these graduations border on "silly" or cross the silly line entirely, depending on your point of view. For example, in a ceremony for the graduates of the 5th grade at one school, parents, grandparents, and all the underclassmen of the elementary school lined the halls on the last day of school as the 5th graders paraded around the hallowed halls of their alma mater to the shouts, applause, and cheers of the assembled. Then there was a special ceremony in which certificates were awarded for this, that, and the other accomplishments of the ten year-olds. (Not to worry; every student went home with an award for something.)

Talk about silly: there's one college that held a graduation ceremony for pets, with the result that that institution now has a hedgehog as one of its grads. 

Another educational institution of lower learning had their kindergarten graduates attired in caps and gowns to celebrate the completion of their rigorous academic training.

THE SPEECHES

And then there are the ceremonies themselves, so let's focus on those for the high school and college graduates, ceremonies featuring speeches which are eminently and immediately forgettable. There's hardly a parental voice or a graduate's voice which does not weigh the speeches in the balance and declare them wanting. Everybody admits this, but we endure it year after year, all the while knowing that the Emperor has no clothes.

The commencement speeches usually have a common denominator phrased as a challenge: "Go out and change the world." Amazing. Are we expecting 22 year-olds to go out and change the world? Really? But that's not the main point.

The main point is that after thousands and thousands and thousands of graduates leave with that challenge ringing in their ears, how come things are only getting worse? How come we have people claiming they don't know if they're male or female? They've graduated; they should know their gender. They're educated, aren't they? How come we have school killings? How come we can't take a "Christmas vacation," but we can enjoy a "Winter Break?" How come a student at a university was expelled for posting on the Internet that he believed in one-man-one-woman marriage?

How come? How come? We could go on and on. But this shouldn't surprise us: "Evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. (II Timothy 3:13) Our graduates are changing the world, but, as the Bible predicts, it's not for the better.