But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children from Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
Matthew 3:7-10

It is far too common in certain strands of conservative Christianity to hear preachers saying things such as, “We are under attack today. Society is trying to steal our spiritual heritage. They have taken down the Ten Commandments, they have removed our crosses from the public eye, they have challenged our religious speech. They want to take away our Christian culture and disconnect us from our Christian roots.”

You have probably heard something of the sort so I do not have to give further examples. But such speaking and preaching has always struck me as problematic, somewhat resembling the Pharisees who prided themselves for their spiritual heritage. “We are sons of Abraham!” the Pharisees might declare, “how dare you insinuate that we need to repent!” The Pharisees waved the flag of religious heritage but did little to carry out the commands of God. John the Baptist declared that if God were only interested in children of Abraham, he could make some out of rocks. But God cares about our hearts, not about our heritage.

Too many Christians today are waving the Christian flag and defending their Christian heritage while displaying far too little concern for fruit in keeping with repentance. We can be far too quick to go to the next political rally but slow to volunteer at the homeless shelter. And even on hot political issues such as abortion, we will scream at pro-choice advocates while doing little to minister to and help the woman considering an abortion.

So we see 21st century Pharisees in the midst of conservative Christianity. Passionate about heritage and roots but far too negligent when it comes to doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God.

It is not important that we plaster the Ten Commandments across our courthouses. It is not important that we paint “One Nation Under God” across the wall of the U. S. Capitol. It is not important that we be allowed to display crosses. God has commanded none of these things. It is, however, important that we serve others in humility, speaking hard words when necessary but not because our pride has been offended.

Rather than living like 21st century Pharisees, ready to pick a fight with anyone who challenges our heritage, may we have the concern of God in Micah 6:8:

He has told you, I man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?

The word sincere is often explained as coming from the Latin sine cera which means without wax. As it turns out this is probably not true. Barnhart’s Dictionary of Etymology says it probably comes from the Latin sincerus which means sound, whole, pure, genuine,… The Wikipedia article on sincerity has a section devoted to the false notion that the word means without wax.

Nonetheless the phrase sine cera, without wax, does come in handy for preachers and bloggers, but let’s avoid wrongly connecting it to the word sincere. 

Much has been made lately of the fact that Christianity is losing status in culture. Multiple news articles and many blog entries alternate between celebrating, mourning, and simply observing what Newsweek describes as The End of Christian America. 

All of this is not bad for the church. I won’t join those celebrating the changes, but I can’t mourn the situation. For too long there has been a veneer of superficial, cultural Christianity over the church. People went to church because it was the thing to do. As it no longer becomes the thing to do, uncommitted people drop out.

I’ve been listening to J. I. Packer’s History and Theology of the Puritans class from Reformed Theological Seminary (available via iTunes U) and he talks about the Puritan frustration with the Gospel Hypocrite – the person who went to church every Sunday because he had to, called himself a Christian, but knew nothing of genuine faith. America over the last 50 years or so has had a lot of gospel hypocrites. Changing mores have altered people’s perception of church and has led to a decline not of Christianity itself but of the gospel hypocrite. For Christians this should be seen as an opportunity.

It is difficult to evangelize lost people today. Changes in entertainment, media, and socialization means it is harder to reach lost people, harder to establish relationships with them. But at least we and they know who they are. A lost person believes he doesn’t need to be saved for a host of reasons – perhaps he thinks God will just forgive everyone, or thinks he isn’t really a sinner, or simply thinks the whole thing is a sham and there is nothing after death anyway, or perhaps he is so distracted by all the business of the world that he gives the matter no thought. To reach him you have to help him see that he is truly lost, that this world is not all there is, and that he will someday stand before a holy judge. A gospel hypocrite believes he doesn’t need to be saved because he thinks he already is. Talk to him all day about salvation and he will agree with you, more or less, never seeing that he is as lost as the person who never comes into the church.

Changes in the world means the church is becoming sine cera, without wax. The veneer of cultural Christianity is being shed and we are not left with more lost people but with people who finally know they are lost – or at least, who finally know they don’t fall within conservative, Biblical Christianity. The gospel hypocrite is jumping ship and showing himself for what he is.

The times, they are a-changin’, but it is not all bad. Christians will face new challenges. We will be increasingly marginalized, laughed at, and even persecuted. But the line between being a child of God or a child of the ruler of this age will finally become clear and people will have to choose whom they will serve.

Jay Adams at the Institute for Nouthetic Studies takes a look at American Idol. Here’s a snippet:

What a wealth of no talent! What ridiculous and superficial evaluations! What supercilious self-promoting judges! What a waste of time!

If this is what Christians are spending their good American dollars and wonderful evening hours on, they’re nuts!

Sorry! That’s how it is in my book.

The New Oxford American Dictionary defines embryo as an unborn human baby, esp. in the first eight weeks from conception, after implantation but before all the organs are developed.

Embryonic stem cell research is scientific research on human beings. Humans put into the test tubes, lab rats destroyed when the experiment is over.

Embryonic stem cell research has always been legal. Under President Bush restrictions were put into place that limited federal funding for ESCR but did not ban such research. Obama lifted that restriction, opening up federal money to any ESC researchers.

The New York Times had a recent article that both celebrated the broad funding support offered under Obama’s policy and voiced opposition to those who want Obama to put in place at least some restrictions on what embryos can be used for research. What blew me away is how The New York Times described the creation of embryonic stem cell lines for research:

Hundreds of stem cell lines have been created around the world, all or virtually all from surplus embryos.

Surplus embryos? Keep in mind the definition of an embryo, an unborn human. What the New York Times is saying is we have surplus humans. Since they serve no other purpose, why not use them for research and experimentation?

In a recent blog post Al Mohler talks about another outrageous use of “surplus humans”. He discusses the argument that aborted babies should have their organs harvested. They aren’t using those organs, are they? We might as well let some good come from those wretched mistakes, those inconveniences, those surplus humans.

The killing of millions of unborn humans through abortion opened the gates for all sorts of atrocity. Embryonic stem cell research pushes us farther along. I pray we never see aborted babies used as organ farms, but the same reasoning that justifies abortion and drives embryonic stem cell research will someday usher in the harvesting of organs from unborn babies. At that point abortion will not just be about letting people decide whether or not they want their child to live or die, abortion will be seen as a way to meet the needs of society. Those who choose to have abortions will be heralded as heroes for providing organs to the sick and dying. And mankind will take another giant leap into the abyss.

“Reversing an eight-year-old limit on potentially life-saving science, President Barack Obama plans to lift restrictions Monday on taxpayer-funded research using embryonic stem cells.” (from the AP)

It is potentially life-saving and absolutely life-destroying. Considering the loss of life involved in ESCR and all of the alternatives now available to researchers I am really baffled as to why anyone would even consider ESCR. I know not everyone believes an embryo should be cherished as human life, but as big as the debate is and with the alternatives out there why even open up the debate? Don’t just block government funding, ban that method of research completely and move people to the alternatives.

No, not the swimming sort of fish. It is rare that one could turn to the New York Times for good spiritual counsel, but a recent opinion piece by Stanley Fish is really quite good.

Here’s a snippet from the conclusion of the article:

This economy, in which funds depleted are endlessly replenished, is underwritten by a power so great and beneficent that it turns failures into treasures. Some economists identify that power as the market and ask us to have faith in it. God might be a better candidate.

Al Mohler blogs about the statement by Bristol Palin that ’sexual abstinence for teens is “not realistic at all.”‘ Here’s a short snippet:

The debate over whether abstinence is realistic or not misses the more important issue — abstinence must be made realistic.

Anthony Esolen at Touchstone offers some thoughts about Super Bowl commercials.

So I am watching the Super Bowl. I am not sure why I am doing this. That is, I am not sure why Christians continue to put up with the abuse. We aren’t married to the mass media, are we? It is not time for us to walk out on an exhausted fascination with self-loathing and animality; not time for us to turn our backs upon the anticulture. It was time years ago.

I may post some thoughts about the inauguration later. For now, John Piper has posted an excerpt from a sermon he preached in 1993, Being Pro-Life Christians Under a Pro-Choice President, with application to our new president. Below is the excerpt of the sermon found on the Desiring God page:

I closed with eight ways to honor a pro-choice president. The seventh was this:

We will honor you by expecting from you straightforward answers to straightforward questions. We would not expect this from a con-man, but we do expect it from an honorable man.

For example,

1. Are you willing to explain why a baby’s right not to be killed is less important than a woman’s right not to be pregnant?
2. Or are you willing to explain why most cities have laws forbidding cruelty to animals, but you oppose laws forbidding cruelty to human fetuses? Are they not at least living animals?
3. Or are you willing to explain why government is unwilling to take away the so-called right to abortion on demand even though it harms the unborn child; yet government is increasingly willing to take away the right to smoke, precisely because it harms innocent non-smokers, killing 3,000 non-smokers a year from cancer and as many as 40,000 non-smokers a year from other diseases?
4. And if you say that everything hangs on whether the fetus is a human child, are you willing to go before national television in the oval office and defend your support for the “Freedom of Choice Act” by holding in your hand a 21 week old fetus and explaining why this little one does not have the fundamental, moral, and constitutional right to life? Are you willing to say to parents in this church who lost a child at that age and held him in their hands, this being in your hands is not and was not a child with any rights of its own under God or under law?

Perhaps you have good answers to each of these questions. We will honor you by expecting you to defend your position forthrightly in the public eye.

You have immense power as President of the United States. To wield it against the protection of the unborn without giving a public accounting in view of moral and scientific reality would be dishonorable. We will honor you by expecting better.

As the father of two daughters the subject of fashion is one that already gives me grief. My girls are three and one and yet even at those ages we are already coming across clothes that I am giving the axe. I do not look forward to the challenge growing as my girls inch toward the teen years.

Over at Gender Blog a series of posts by Dr. Timothy Paul Jones has just been started addressing the subject of Clothing and the Character of the Child. I recommend all parents and non-parents, humans and fashion designers, check it out.