Writing Rhetorically

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.

Occasionally I run across a great apologetic work and want to share it with my friends and students. One I’ve had on my shelf for nearly 20 years is Greg Bahnsen’s Always Ready. Bahnsen asks and answers vital questions related to apologetics, but first he addresses the attitude of the apologist.

“Apologetics” comes from the Greek apologia, which means “defense.” Christians must be prepared to give an answer for the hope within them, according to 1 Peter 3:15. This is the purpose of the practice of apologetics.

Bahnsen uses the method of worldview, or presuppositional, apologetics. In brief, some apologists will begin by assuming all ideas are equal, and then argue toward the truth of God from that point. Bahnsen begins with the assumption that God’s word is true, then defends Christianity. Either method is useful in different circumstances; CS Lewis found the first method useful in his little book Mere Christianity.

Often the trouble with presuppositional apologetics appears in the attitude (or assumed attitude) of the apologist. Those of us who take the position of presuming the truth of God’s Word are sometimes seen as arrogant. The unbeliever in this discussion sees the apologist’s firm stance on the inerrancy of scripture, and he assumes the believer is arrogantly stomping all over him.

This is where Bahnsen comes in. Along with presenting a biblical worldview that adheres to the inerrancy of scripture, he also insists on an attitude check for the apologist.

First, Bahnsen teaches, the Christian recognizes that on his own he is not able to know anything about truth. How can a person, on his own, measure truth? My internal discernment is faulty. Every individual’s method of measuring of right or wrong is different. There must be some outside authority which shows me how to measure truth. That outside authority is God’s Word, which never changes.

Bahnsen says, “David’s testimony was that ‘the Lord my God illumines my darkness’ (Psalm 18:28). Into the darkness of man’s ignorance, the ignorance which results from attempted self-sufficiency, come the words of God, bringing light and understanding (Ps 119:130)” (20). When we renounce our own ideas of self-sufficiency, Bahnsen writes, then we are in the best position to present God’s truth to ourselves and others. He calls this “humble boldness.”

[P]resuppositional epistemology demands two attitudes. Both attitudes are inherent in the very position. First, the presuppositionalist must be bold, for knowledge is impossible aside from presupposing God’s truth. Second, he must be humble, for the reason why he presupposes God’s truth (and the only way any man can come to such a presupposition) resides in the grace of God alone. The fear of the Lord is foundational to wisdom, and hence the wise must be humble. The Christian scholar, then, must evidence a humble boldness in his confrontation with others in the world of thought. (35-36)

Undergirding all the apologist’s motives and thoughts is the knowledge that he has nothing without the grace of God. This is humbling.

In my Starting Points class (I call it “biblical worldview 101”) we take time to learn about the elements of other religions’ belief systems. We might be tempted to giggle at other religions that make no sense to us. However, when we take the position of absolute surrender to the truth of God, knowing that without him we are nothing, we cannot help but feel humble.

Similarly, as one who teaches according to the Classical Method, I know that this kind of learning can lead to a tendency toward arrogance. We love to learn, we love to read, and we love to write about what we have learned. We love to apply the truth that we are learning. 

However, if our Classical Education method is built on that same presupposition–that we are nothing without an all-knowing, Creator God–then we have no reason to become arrogant. Pride in our own intellectual achievements is worthless. Arrogance has no place.

This is the foundation of Classical Christian, biblical worldview education, as it is in apologetics as well: humble boldness. Because we know that without him we are nothing. As you look at your educational plans for next year (if you are a parent or a teacher), this is a great time to pick up Bahnsen’s book, evaluate your attitude about truth and apologetics, and once again remember that anything you know comes from God’s hand.

A friend was recently asked to write out her testimony, and she struggled. Not because she had no testimony, but because she believes that her story is the same as mine: she was raised a Christian, then her eyes were opened just a year or two ago to what the Gospel really means, and now she’s free to worship God. She weeps when she gives that brief account. I have a very similar story.

Raised in a Christian home, I knew, before I could walk, that Jesus is Lord and that He loves me. Baptized at twelve, attended Sunday School, all of that. My rough patch as a Christian was at age 15, when I watched my dad die a long, painful death in the hospital. Trying to recover from that as a teenager was—simply—horrid. However, I remember reading Job, learning from the pain, and coming out the other end of a long, dark tunnel to find joy in serving God.

For years afterward, I attended Bible studies, read the Christian books, listened to the sermons. They all told me (or at least I heard) how much harder I needed to try to be a better Christian. How horrible I felt every day, when I failed at being better! The message of “do more, try harder” pounded at me, weighed me down. No matter how much joy I felt at knowing that Jesus was risen, I carried a chain around my ankles that told me I was no good—a failure. I failed at being a wife, a mother, a teacher, a friend, a daughter.

All those self-help books, all those studies about being a better woman of God—I knew them all. And after reading them and nodding and smiling through the studies, I went home more beaten down than before. What a failure!

Sometime in 2009 I began to realize that this was not the way to live. I knew all the scripture, all the truth. I knew what Christ had done. Yet the weight of trying to be better, and the knowledge that I had failed, was choking me.

My good friend and I discovered we have the same stories. We discovered together that our struggle was not ours to own. We realized that we were right: we cannot be better. We simply could not become better on our own. We had picked up some form of religion that had told us we must “do more, try harder” to become super-Christians, when in fact that wasn’t our job. I cannot be better on my own strength. Why try?

The better, more clear, more real story is this: On my own, I am a sinner. I am a failure. Instead of handing myself over to God and asking him to make me new, I was trying to do it myself. Each new program that came along in church, I tried. Each time, I failed. All along, all I needed was the Gospel preached to me. I didn’t need to hear another programmatic message about the “Ten Secrets for a Better Marriage” or “How to Raise Happy, Healthy Christian Kids.” And there’s the victory: I am a failure. But God, in his overwhelming mercy, saved me. What I needed was to have the Gospel preached to me, over and over.

I needed to be reminded of Paul’s exhortation to Timothy:

I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. (2 Timothy 4:1-5)

I needed the reminder that people will chase after other things, trying something better. What could be better than hearing the Gospel, in season and out? Why do we try to add to it or enhance it?

Since I realized my desperate need to hear the Gospel preached, I realized another truth, and my life has since been drastically different. I found that I had been no better than a Pharisee. I had been working to make myself better, to adhere to a law, not realizing that I had failed before I began. All the trappings of the “do more, try harder” methods had failed, but I kept looking for something else, while the Gospel was simply waiting for me to return to it. I found the truth in Galatians 2:15-21:

We are Jews by nature and not sinners from among the Gentiles; nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified. But if, while seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have also been found sinners, is Christ then a minister of sin? May it never be! For if I rebuild what I have once destroyed, I prove myself to be a transgressor. For through the Law I died to the Law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.

What I had not realized was that I had made Christ’s death unnecessary, because I was trying to justify myself.

When I felt like a failure, I was right. I cannot, on my own, make myself better. I cannot save myself on my own. Now I remind myself: it is God who makes me better. I am nothing without his grace. I was unclean, and Christ’s death cleansed me. I deserve hell, and Christ saved me. God could not look on my sinfulness, but Christ’s righteousness, laid over me, makes me whole and new. Now that I am saved, I can walk joyfully through my days. When I feel like a failure (and I still do—the world calls that “low self-esteem”), I admit that I failed, place myself at the foot of the cross, and ask Christ to make me whole, because I cannot do it on my own.

When I feel like a failure, I pick up my Bible and read the Gospel once again. I am reminded: It was Christ who saved me!

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. (Ephesians 2:1-10, emphasis mine)

I fall down. I fail. But God picks me up again. It is his design, his plan, and his work, not mine. I don’t need a program or self-help book to tell me. I need the Gospel. Over and over again.

(Thanks, MK!) 🙂

What does it mean to be transformed by the renewing of your mind? (Romans 12:2) How does one take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ? (2 Corinthians 10:5) This is the question of a disciple of Christ, and it is one that Christians—parents and teachers alike—focus on throughout the year. The answer takes many forms.

First, we can look at how we view truth. For one of my essay assignments, a student pondered a problem: relativism. However, she did not look at the relativism of the secular mindset. She looked at how relativism has begun to capture the Christian mind. The statistics are stunning.

A 2002 Barna survey shows that while 64% of all adults say that truth depends on the particular situation they are in, a larger-than-expected proportion of Christian adults agree. Fully one-third of Christian adults believe there is no such thing as absolute truth (Barna.org). Truth, they say, depends on the circumstance.

 If I rely on my own mind to evaluate and measure truth, I will always fall short. My mind is faulty, and I make mistakes all the time. How can I rely on my own judgment to discern right from wrong? I need an outside, objective guideline and measuring rod that does not change with the times or float along with the winds of whimsy and popular culture. Where will I find that measurement standard?

My student writes in her essay:

More and more, people absorb the ideas of the age, perfectly comfortable in accepting the fact that they will happily coexist with opposing worldviews – even mix them. In order for real discussion to proceed, people must realize the need for truth…One must admit certain facts in the physical world. If a person denies a table’s residence in the middle of a room and attempts to walk straight across the room, assuring himself the table does not exist because he does not wish it to, he will still crash into the table, possibly sustaining serious injury. Thus it is in the metaphysical world. Some thoughts find their basis in truth, while others grow out of falsehood. Once convinced of the existence of absolute truth, the discussion can go into which worldview entertains that truth. But the establishment of reality proves the first step to finding the proper belief. (my underline)

Even Christians, the author maintains, run the risk of error in measuring truth for themselves. Truth exists as an absolute, a right and wrong, whether I want to acknowledge it or not. Like that table in the room, truth is there, and I must choose to accept or deny it. If I deny it, I will get pretty badly bruised when I try to maneuver through the room.

Denial of the truth can get pretty silly at times. Ayn Rand, though an avowed atheist, nevertheless acknowledged the futility of denying absolutes. She writes in Atlas Shrugged, “How do you know what’s good, anyway? Who knows what’s good? Who can ever know? There are no absolutes—as Dr. Pritchett has proved irrefutably.” The savvy reader will chuckle and say, “Absolutely?” However, humorous or not, this is what many folks say as they march along, blithely ignoring that truth really exists—it sits right in front of them.

The truth is that absolutes exist. Absolutes—a right and a wrong—cannot switch places just because we find them inconvenient or uncomfortable. Thus we encounter step one toward renewing our minds, as disciples of Christ: admitting that on our own we cannot “make our own truths.” We must submit our minds to the Author of Life, the one whose very nature is truth, and wait for Him to teach us how to take every thought captive.