Category Archives: Biblical Worldview

Vice President Joe Biden, traveling in China, didn’t just stick his foot in his mouth. He laid out his moral view very clearly: pragmatism.

A philosophical idea that, according to dictionary.com, stresses “practical consequences as constituting the essential criterion in determining meaning, truth, or value,” pragmatism bases its values and morals on what works. If it works, it’s right.

Biden, in a speech at Sichuan University, made a wide detour around morality and moved straight to pragmatism. In speaking of China’s one-child-only policy, he said, “Your policy has been one which I fully understand — I’m not second-guessing — of one child per family . . . What’s wrong with it? Not the murder of millions of babies; he adds that “one wage earner will be taking care of four retired people. Not sustainable.”

In other words, their idea of keeping their population in control is understandable, but it’s going to pose a problem when the population ages and there aren’t enough young people to take care of the older ones. It’s just not practical.

Biden ignores the vicious, forced abortions performed by the millions. He turns away from the repugnant practice of preferring males over females, thus leading to selective abortions of baby girls simply because they are not sons. He looks the other way in light of savage imprisonment of women for the crime of pregnancy, and the tortures and beatings of their family members if the women go into hiding to conceal their pregnancy.

No, for Biden, what’s wrong with China’s one-child-only policy is that it is not economically sustainable.

China’s brutal system comes home when you meet Western families who have adopted Chinese girls. One such family got a call from a missionary friend who came across a little girl left to die in a Chinese orphanage. At 18 months, she weighed no more than a 3-month-old baby. Malnutrition had begun to shut down her body: she could not walk, and she was deaf.

The missionaries rescued this little girl and called their American friends to get the wheels turning to adopt her. They nourished her, loved her, and helped as best they could to begin adoption procedures. Soon the missionaries turned little Amy over to her new family, and she joined three brothers, who doted on her and lavished her with love.

Little Amy regained her health, her weight, and her hearing. She had joined a very musical family, and Amy’s talent on piano grew leaps and bounds. She amazes audiences when she plays in recitals and in church. One shudders to think how much longer this dynamic, brilliant child would have lasted in that orphanage had she not been rescued.

Her story is not unique. Tragically, countless babies never make it to orphanages; they are simply ripped from their mother’s wombs and tossed into the garbage. Their offending mothers are then sterilized so this kind of crime against China–pregnancy–cannot be committed again.

Though Biden’s staff later used the word “repugnant” to clarify the administration’s view on China’s policy, they still referred to it in pragmatic terms rather than moral, repeating the “unsustainable” phrase he had earlier used. Yes, it is economically unsustainable, but when seen in light of a biblical worldview, the stark, savage, bloody criminality of this policy is heinous because it sheds the innocent blood of millions of babies and their mothers. The policy is practiced by the most brutal government on earth today, and it does not seem to be abating.

As Mona Charen puts it, “The Chinese communist government, which has killed more people than any regime in the history of the world (65 million according to the Black Book of Communism), regards human beings as widgets to be manipulated or destroyed in the service of the state. Yes, they’ve developed an expanding economy by adopting free market practices. But the regime remains one of the most vicious on the planet. It is deeply shameful that the vice president needed to be reminded of that.”

The Discovery Channel is launching a new series called Curiosity. They have announced that they will answer some of the deepest, most probing questions of mankind. As you would expect, the show will head on into the theological questions, because people are engineered to ask about our purpose, our origin, about death and evil and eternity. And as you would expect, their first show will explore whether God created the universe.

However, beware the worldview of a show and its producers. If the show were to present all the possibilities “out there” about the origin of the universe, you might see theologians as well as Darwinians interviewed. That would allow the audience to come to their own conclusions. However, the first show of the series will feature someone whose views of the universe’s origins are already plainly known.

Stephen Hawking, theoretical physicist and cosmologist, will host this first episode. The problem is, Hawking has declared that there is no need for God. In his latest book, The Grand Design, he denies the existence of God. So when you invite someone, even as brilliant as Hawking, to answer that deep question, you already know what you are going to get: denial.

Don’t read this as an attack on Hawking. He can design all the ideas he wants for denying the existence of God, and that has no bearing on whether God actually exists or not. God exists whether Hawking admits it or not.

Rather, I’m disappointed that, in order to answer a deeply profound question, Discovery’s producers chose an atheist. What kind of answer did they expect to get? Not an evenly-weighted one. And we can expect that Hawking will shoot down any arguments other folks might bring forward on that episode.

Imagine that deep question of the origin of the universe being answered by a person who knows the biblical truth about God. How different would that show be? This dilemma mirrors the same situation in public schools: teach about the universe, but only allow evolutionists to answer the questions. What do you get?

That is the trouble with worldviews. No matter how hard you try, you cannot be neutral. The question of whether God created the universe has no middle ground (unless you consider Deism neutral, in which God created a universe he no longer chooses to enter). Either he designed and created it, or he did not. Either the universe arose out of chaotic time and chance and random swirls of gas and dust (oops–where did THEY come from?), or an eternal God spoke the universe into being. You can’t have both.

So Discovery Channel: good idea, bad plan. Go ahead and teach that God doesn’t exist, but don’t tell us you have explored all the options to come up with an answer. When you chose Stephen Hawking to answer the question, you already knew what he would say–and so do we.

A visit to any crowded theme park will prove this to be true: Don’t follow humans too closely. You will run into them when they stop suddenly or turn sharply. My husband and I just returned from such a trip (yes, even as empty nesters, we love visiting a theme park every few years). Casual observation showed that people who walk from here to there are prone to wander and will not walk in a straight line.

Some will walk to the right while looking to the left. It’s best to just stop and wait for them to realize someone is in their path, because you don’t know if jumping to the right or the left is best. You can’t depend on where their next step will take them, and often you can’t get out of their way.

Some people will stop suddenly to change their course. I ran into several people that way last week. Maybe they needed to look at the map or check out a sign. Maybe they were frustrated by someone else in their party and decided to have it out, right there, in the middle of a crowd. Perhaps their child just dumped ice cream all over or had a meltdown because he desperately needed a nap. Whatever–those folks need wide berth, so we tried not to follow anyone too closely as we walked in the sweltering heat.

What has all this to do with biblical worldview? The correlation amazes me. Just as I cannot rely on the steady progress of individuals ambling down the walkway at a theme park, so I cannot closely rely on other human beings in my daily life.

A quick listen to the daily news can confirm that. The guy–or gal–you voted for last year: how’s he doing? Has he let you down? I’m sure voters in New York, or at least some of them, were disgusted by their US Representative, Anthony Weiner, who got caught in a nasty, vulgar scandal. But it’s important to remember that he is a human being, not a god, and he fell prey to what attacks us too: pride, temptation, desire, ego, lust. His failure was very public. Yours may not be quite as public, but you too have major lapses in judgment. (We call those “sins.”)

He climbed a pedestal, or someone put him there, and perhaps he began to believe he was beyond the moral guidelines of mere humans, those little people who put him in office. But guess what? That happens to many, many people in positions of importance, and it is not limited to a political party, rank, gender, ethnicity, country of origin, or religious persuasion. Guess what? It happens to humans, who (remember?) are subject to sudden stops, turns, or failings.

The moment we put our entire faith in someone, we begin down the path of disappointment and disillusionment. I fail my husband. I have failed my children, my family, my friends. It’s because I am human. And I’ll bet you can think of ways you have disappointed someone, or been bitterly failed by someone close to you.

Jeremiah 17:5-10 tells us just how wrong we have our perspective:

This is what the Lord says: “Cursed are those who put their trust in mere humans, who rely on human strength and turn their hearts away from the Lord. They are like stunted shrubs in the desert, with no hope for the future. They will live in the barren wilderness, in an uninhabited salty land. But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence. They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit. The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is? But I, the Lord, search all hearts and examine secret motives. I give all people their due rewards, according to what their actions deserve.”  (NLT, emphasis mine)

Human beings are fallible, unreliable creatures. Yet the unique thing about us is that we were created to seek someone on whom we can rely. We are so needy, searching and aching for someone who will not let us down, and all we do is mourn when we are disappointed time and time again. We are sad, dry, parched, withering on the vine when we get so bitterly disappointed.

Read that passage again, though.  Blessed are those who put their hope in, who rely on, God. Instead of withering, we flourish and grow and rejoice–and we produce fruit! Why is that? Because God is unchanging, never subject to sudden fits and starts. He is solid, unmovable, reliable, the ultimate end of our lonely search.

It’s a funny thing, to walk down the pathways of a theme park and watch humans on parade, so to speak. When we can remember that they are fallible, prone to wander, stopping and starting without warning–when we remember that those people we put on pedestals will fall off every time–we can relax.

God promises his rest–his relaxation–when we realize that the only reliable one on whom we can depend is him. No one can save us from our own poison, our own fallibility, but him.

So walking along at a theme park–or just looking around the home, the school, the office, the church–it should not surprise us that human beings are subject to sudden stops, starts, turns, or outbursts.  It’s how we deal with that, and put it into perspective, that matters. Be disappointed and devastated, or remember that once again you put your hope in the wrong place.

 My friend knew her little boy was growing up when she dropped him off for an afternoon at the mall with his buddies.  She picked the boys up at the prearranged time, and the smell of men’s cologne filled the back of the car. They’d been trying out new grownup smells.

She rolled down the window, bracing herself against the chilly Michigan air, and glanced back in the rearview mirror. Then she smiled as she saw the little boy still. He and his friends were gorging themselves on large bags of Jelly Bellies. He wasn’t ready to grow up quite yet.

Recently another mom needed my advice on teenage boys. “I don’t know my own son,” she lamented to me. The mother of a teenage son was not sure who this strange young man was. As her story continued, I began witnessing the same pattern I had seen countless times over nearly two decades of teaching teenagers.

The answer is pretty clear, but it is not easy. When young men reach that upper high school level, they begin to pull away. The boy is no longer little, but he’s trying to figure out how to become a man. That turmoil makes for some confusing changes, both for mom and son.

The boy who used to be organized and studious might become lazy and disordered. Or an unmotivated young man might suddenly come to life and find responsibility. He prefers to be alone or with friends instead of with parents. Any kind of change of personality may not be cause for alarm, but instead may evidence his confusion. He is trying to figure out what growing up looks like.

The mom wasn’t fully convinced when I assured her that her senior son was just trying to pull away and figure it all out. “Let him fail once or twice. Don’t rescue him,” I advised, as I have countless times to other moms. She admitted that her husband had said the same thing to her. She was still holding on, though, trying–in love–to protect him from his lack of motivation.

In fact, I had to admit, I’ve had to preach that lesson to myself a few times: let your child fail instead of trying to rescue him. It’s better that he learn a lesson while under your roof, while you can still advise him, than if you bail him out and he never learn the lesson.

As a new empty-nester, my memory is still fresh from having sent a daughter and two young men off into the world. My sons’ journeys from boys into men were not the same, but in their own ways they had to break away to grow up. It hurt, but it didn’t devastate, because I knew it was their route to maturity.

The biblical wisdom holds true. A young man leaves his mother, and a woman leaves her home, before marrying (Genesis 2:24). Leave his mother? Does it really have to be this way? But this wording is no accident. To be a strong, healthy, mature young man, he must depart from his childish ways and stop depending on his parents. But separating from his mommy is hard on her. It hurts. The journey from boy to man is also the journey from Mommy to Mom–a different way of relating to one another.

Mom and son

Wise parents allow this separation so that their son can be the man God intends him to be. Clinging to the little boy only leads to more pain: that little boy-turned-man may just stay away once he has departed.

How stunning the similarity to labor and childbirth. That act is so painful, but oh, the joy of the sweet newborn! The journey from little boy to man can at times be painful on other levels, but once that boy is grown and learning how to become a responsible young man, oh, the joy of relating to him as an adult!

Happy Mother’s Day!

Like many of you, I’m on the sidelines watching controversies brew in the Christian world. Often I wonder what we are doing to one another, if controversies are necessary. Do they tear apart the Church, which should be unified, as Christ commanded? Should we always pursue peace among ourselves and keep our mouths shut? If so, at what cost?

For Christians, when confronted with controversy, we should adhere to God’s word above all. It should be our primary guide. And I believe that God’s word guides us to stand for the truth — unswerving, undaunted in the face of untruth. For good reason.

On one hand, we are to be reconciled one to another, and we are to be unified, showing the world our love for one another. John 17 is often quoted with regard to unity, as Jesus prays: “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me” (verses 22-23). Unity is prescribed for those who are within the body of truth and who know the truth, as described in the verses right before these.

Yes, unity is a goal. What should we do, though, when we simply cannot agree with one another in the Church? Again, go to God’s word. Paul faced controversy in the early church, and he was unafraid. When one of the leaders (Peter) was doing something that seemed contradictory, Paul confronted him in front of other leaders. He told him how his actions contradicted his profession of faith (see Galatians 2: 11-14).  A quick read of these verses shows that Peter was leading people astray in the name of Christ, and Paul called him out on it.

Then there were times when wrong thinking entered the early church. When faced with wrong-thinkers (some would call them heretics), what did Paul do? Today I see Answers in Genesis leader Ken Ham rebuked because he “called out” an organization that is leading people astray. It is not Christian, some have protested to him, to stand up and rebuke others who call themselves Christian. It isn’t loving, they say. But Paul clearly calls out someone who leads another astray. And in Titus 3:1-11 he sets the standard for Christians to follow the Gospel and rebuke those among them who lead others astray.

Yes, some would like us to keep our disagreement private. The Great Homeschool Convention directors disinvited Ken Ham from Answers in Genesis when Ham pointed out the unbiblical position of another conference attendee who calls himself Christian. So what should someone who defends biblical truth do when faced with an organization that purports to be Christian but does not hold biblical views?

We are not told whether Paul met individually with the heretics to try and talk them into changing their thinking. We do have in front of us the letters that Paul wrote to churches that had heretics in their midst, when wrong thinking had begun creeping in. Clearly his priority was the purity of the Gospel message. That should be our concern, too. Paul’s zeal for the Gospel prompted him to speak out when heresy drifted in.

When faced with two contradictory teachings from people who say they represent the Christian church, the guidelines are simple: search the scripture to see which message is biblical. Not just one verse, but whole passages, in context. The one who teaches biblically is not afraid to have you hold up his teaching against the Bible to see if it is true. Where there is error, as Paul notes to Titus, point it out, then go the other way.

Another full-fledged controversy concerns a new book by pastor Rob Bell, Love Wins. I haven’t read the book so I will not pick apart the supposed argument. However, I will follow the dispute and see who speaks biblically and who does not. So far I see one side argue with scripture and the other side about feelings.

So is it biblical to call out other Christians with whom we disagree? It depends on the disagreement. If it is about heresy, then say so. Be unafraid in your defense of Scripture. Be zealous for the truth. Be ready to get shunned, as Ken Ham was when he dared to speak the truth. Truth will stand up to careful biblical scrutiny. Error will fall apart.