Kuyperian, Author at Kuyperian Commentary

On May 25, 2022 By Kuyperian In Church 2

Tragedies: The Southern Baptist Convention Sex Abuse Problem and The Texas School Shooting

by Rev. Rich Lusk

You may have seen the absolutely horrific report on sexual sin and sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention that was released earlier this week. The report is the fruit of an extended independent investigation into claims made against various Southern Baptist leadership and congregations. I have not looked into the report in any detail but it is an absolute travesty. The report documents cases of adultery, fornication, and child molestation. In some cases, offenders were able to move from church to church, multiplying their victims. Those who tried to sound the alarm were silenced. Far too many in the Southern Baptists denomination were obviously more concerned with protecting their “brand” than doing what is best for victims. They used their polity (a commitment to the autonomy of each local church) as an excuse for not warning churches about predators hopping from one congregation to the next. Some leading pastors in the Southern Baptist Convention, including former president J. D. Grear, have argued that the Bible only “whispers about sexual sin” — a claim that was incredibly foolish when it was made and now sounds like complicity in the cover up. The entire sordid ordeal is a massive black eye for all Christians, even those of us who are not Southern Baptist.

What makes it even more unfortunate is that we live in a time when there are all kinds of excellent resources available to churches and pastors to aid in detecting and dealing with abuse. There is really no excuse for church leaders to not have well established protocols for addressing abuse claims.

There are many lessons the broader church can take away from this mess. Obviously, making sure that you only have qualified leaders is a must. Do not confuse giftedness and personal charisma with holiness. Making sure abuse claims are taken seriously and the proper authorities inside and outside the church are involved is also a must. At TPC, we partner with MinistrySafe to help us in this area MinistrySafe provides an online training course for everyone who works with children. They are also able to provide highly competent guidance and counsel if and when an issue arises. We had the entire leadership of the CREC go through MinistrySafe pastors training at our General Council meeting several years ago. To my knowledge, the CREC is the only denomination that has done something like this, but it is highly necessary; church leaders simply must be informed about abuse, how to handle abuse claims, and how to get the best care for abuse victims.

One other note: As so often happens in our culture, tragedies are immediately politicized and weaponized to further an unrelated agenda. I’ve already seen people arguing that the Southern Baptist scandal happened because the denomination is committed to a male-only pastorate, or that this case proves that all churches are full of sexual hypocrites and therefore the church should not be listened to when it speaks about homosexuality, transgenderism, etc. While any scandal like this should drive a church to humbly repent, we should also recognize that Satan uses things like to seek to silence faithful churches from teaching the truth about men, women, marriage, and sex. As tragic as the Southern Baptist sex abuse problem is, it will also be tragic if that scandal is used to steer the entire denomination in a progressive direction, which is clearly what some are going to try to do with it.

The school shooting in Texas yesterday was yet another tragedy of senseless evil at work in our world. We can grieve with those who grieve, even at a distance, and we can certainly pray for the community in Uvalde. Sadly, as with abuse scandals, mass shootings tend to be quickly transformed into political talking points about race, gun control, mental health, or some other agenda. This a ridiculous response: We are not going to stop horrific acts of violence like this with one more gun control law, and everyone in their right mind knows that. Knee-jerk emotional responses do not change the world in a positive way. But there was one thoughtful thread on Twitter that someone alerted me to yesterday. Ali Beth Stuckey asks the question: If the one commonality among all of these shooters is that they are young males, does that indicate something significant? Her response does not say everything that probably needs to be said about the issue, but she raises some good questions. The young men perpetrating these wicked acts are certainly not victims, but their actions do point to a much wider social sickness and spiritual rot that surrounds us.

On May 19, 2022 By Kuyperian In Family and Children Like

A Review of the Documentary, “Eve in Exile” from Canon+

Guest Post by Melinda Brito

Rebekah Merkle’s documentary, Eve in Exile, begins where all good theology does: in Genesis. It reminds us that in God’s creative order, work and specific mandates were given to man and woman. Man was created first, and then the woman was created to be a fit helper for man. They were designed to accomplish these God-given tasks together.

The documentary continues by presenting a historical overview of the rise of feminism. Merkle identifies three “waves” in the feminist movement. The second wave is probably most relevant for us to consider because it came after the rise of technological inventions and innovations. The result was that the fixed and fulfilling work that women had been doing, the arduous yet rewarding work of producing and preparing food, making and repairing clothing, and educating the children, necessary tasks for the survival and well-being of the family, began to change. With the advent of easy-to-use domestic inventions, these tasks that were the worthy work of women became less time-consuming. As a result, women could shop for their food and clothes, cook meals, keep a clean house, and still have time to spare.

In 1963, The Feminine Mystique, authored by Betty Friedan, found a sympathetic audience by a generation of women who felt isolated, bored, and discontent with merely being ornamental in their homes. Friedan’s answer to the problem was that women should find work and the fulfillment of a full day of labor outside the home. This effectively began “the tearing down of the house” by women’s own hands.

While Rebekah does a more than adequate job of demonstrating the shift of women from inside to outside the home, she also takes the opportunity to critique the Christian woman’s lack of thoughtful or biblical consideration and wholesale acceptance of the secular community’s answer to the problem. While we may find commonality in identifying a problem, the generation that opened their arms and embraced feminist ideals as their messiah did not consider the end of the matter. Even today, Christians fail to grasp that the “how” and “why” of how someone comes to a conclusion is just as important as the conclusion itself because the how/why will determine the path we take as we seek to deal with the problem. In this case, Christians blindly followed the path set out by unbelievers on how to deal with the issues of boredom, feelings of unfulfillment, and loneliness simply because they agreed that a problem existed. But Christians must contemplate a truly biblical response to the problem, rather than adopting unbelieving presuppositions.

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On May 18, 2022 By Kuyperian In Church Like

Temptations for Christians Who Want to Change the World, Part 2

See Part 1

Guest post by Rev. Jeff Meyers

This is the second installment of a condensed version of the “Final Reflections & Summary” from my book Wisdom for Dissidents (full title: Ancient Wisdom for Today’s Christian Dissidents).

The third temptation is to cozy up to our enemies, thinking that we can win their favor. If we can get them to like us, maybe they will leave us alone. This is the “partiality” problem James criticizes in 2:1-13. It is not simply that they are favoring the rich over the poor. That would be bad enough. But the man who is being catered to in their assembly is the one who wears the ring of authority and the robe of office (2:20). He is explicitly identified as an oppressor, someone who drags them into court, and a blasphemer against the name of Jesus (2:6-7). To “judge” the rich oppressor as someone more deserving of special care than the poor believer is “to become judges engaging in an evil conspiracy” (2:4). That evaluation from James is not just about individual “evil thoughts” but about how the brothers have conspired together to appease their rich enemies. They have thereby dishonored those poorer disciples whom “God has chosen . . . to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom” (2:5).

The appeasement option ought not to be on the table for conscientious Christian leaders. To turn a blind eye to immorality and abuse with the hope of getting a hearing from some powerful government or academic figure would be to betray our allegiance to the Lord. Not only is such schmoozing mostly ineffective—the more you give, the more they will take—but such behavior runs counter to the examples of the prophets and of Jesus himself. The prophets denounced the rich and powerful, even, maybe especially, when they were in positions of authority in Israel. Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and others did not cozy up to corrupt, immoral leaders. Neither did Jesus.

Fourth, the most insidious temptation, according to James, is to use the power of our words to guide the church toward aggressive and violent action thinking we are acting thereby as agents of God’s justice. As we have argued, James 3:1-12 is at the heart of the letter. And the key passage that unlocks the entire letter is James 1:19-20, “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every man be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” Anger against their oppressors has fueled impetuous speeches with the intent to rally the disciples to make things right by means of aggressive, retributive action (3:13-16; 4:1-12). This kind of Christian “zealotry” will not make things right. Instead, such speech and behavior are not of the Spirit but demonic (3:15). These angry and violent responses have been fueled by the immature rhetoric of their teachers, the brothers responsible for leading their communities. They want freedom, but they are going about achieving liberty in the wrong ways.

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On May 9, 2022 By Kuyperian In Culture Like

Temptations for Christians Who Want to Change the World, Part 1

Guest post by Rev. Jeff Meyers

This is a two-part, condensed version of my “Final Reflections & Summary” from my book Wisdom for Dissidents (full title: Ancient Wisdom for Today’s Christian Dissidents).

In 1980 a friend approached me after church and handed me a manila file folder. “Read these and let me know what you think,” he said. I did. It turned out the folder was filled with samples of 3 or 4 Christian newsletters. These were newsletters giving Christian commentary on contemporary cultural issues—abortion, economics, art, and politics. After reading them, I mailed in a donation and a request for subscriptions to all of them.

I had just come out of a severely dispensational Christian community where everyone was convinced that the end of the world was upon us. Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth was a Christian bestseller. Because the world was ending you don’t polish brass on a sinking ship, rather you wait for the ship to begin to sink and then Jesus will swoop down deus ex machina to snatch up Christians off the tilting deck and rapture us into heaven. This meant that careful thinking about what might be happening in American society and how Christians might make a difference was new to me. But I was 23 years old with a wife and newborn daughter which meant I was motivated to think about the future.

Well, we thought things were bad back then. Christians in the early 1980s were worried about the increasing secularization of American culture. A few months ago, we renovated our basement and I had to box up three walls of books. I had an entire bookshelf of books from the 1980s that analyzed the anti-Christian drift that was occurring in American society.

Today, however, the marginalization of Christians in education, culture, and politics has accelerated faster than anyone could have imagined even ten years ago, let alone in 1980.

And this has led to some interesting proposals from Christian leaders on how Christians ought to respond. Everything from the call to “faithful presence” by James Davidson Hunter, to the “benedict option” by Rod Dreher. And then there’s the Trump-inspired populism of the last few years. Now, Dreher is prepping us to suffer as martyrs in his recent book Live not by Lies.

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On April 15, 2022 By Kuyperian In Theology 1

Between Two Insurrectionists: Riots in the Capital

Guest Post by Tim Gallant

No, not that capital, silly. We’re talking about real insurrectionists here. It is Good Friday, after all.

So first things first.

Insurrectionists, Not Thieves

Jesus did not die between two thieves.

“What??” you exclaim. “My Bible tells me he did just that, in both Matthew and Mark” (Matthew 27:38, 44; Mark 15:27).

The Greek word used, however, is lestai (singular lestes). While this term apparently can refer to violent bandits (and thus “robbers”), it is not a term associated with what we generally think when we hear the word thief (pickpockets, burglars, larcenists etc). Such thieves would almost certainly never have been crucified.

The Romans can justly be criticized for resorting to crucifixion frequently — but they didn’t use it on generic criminal elements. It was their great weapon against non-Romans who seriously disrupted the social order, such as runaway slaves and revolutionaries.

Moreover, the term lestai itself also happens to refer to revolutionaries — people who engage in insurrections and plotting. John 18:40 identifies Barabbas (for whom Jesus’ death basically became a ransom) as a lestes. Meanwhile, Mark informs us that Barabbas was imprisoned awaiting punishment because he had been involved in insurrection, and indeed had committed murder in the process (Mark 15:7). He is not a lestes because he is a thief; he is a lestes because he is a rebel, a revolutionary.

That verse, incidentally, says that Barabbas was bound with the insurrectionists (stasiastes) who had made insurrection (stasis) with him. This strongly suggests that the “thieves” crucified with Jesus were co-insurrectionists involved in the same rebellion that Barabbas was involved in.

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On March 25, 2022 By Kuyperian In Culture Like

Joe Biden, Biology, and Supreme Court Nominee: Questions for the Idiocracy

Guest Post by Rich Lusk

Some questions spurred by recent cultural events:

1. Setting aside the criteria of commitment to the Constitution, competence, and wisdom, Joe Biden said he would only nominate a black woman for the Supreme Court vacancy. This is identity politics to the extreme. But now the identity of Biden’s pick is in doubt. That nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson, has just admitted in her Congressional hearing that she does not know what a woman is. Therefore, how can she know she is a woman? How do we know she fits Biden’s criteria that the justice pick must be a woman? And if a woman is an undefinable thing, why do we need one on the Supreme Court anyway?

After hearing the mantra “follow the science” constantly for the last couple years, we now have a Supreme Court justice nominee who is pretending the most basic, obvious facts of human biology are not real. If ever there were proof that we live in total idiocracy, Biden and Jackson are it. Every nation has its share of idiots; the problem with America is that we have chosen our idiots to be our rulers.

Sidenote: Obviously, Jackson knows what a woman is even though she is not a biologist. Obviously, Jackson will uphold Title IX, she will treat sex as a protected class under civil rights law, she will “believe all women” in cases of rape accusation, etc. Obviously, she celebrates historic “firsts” for biological women. So what gives? Why did she refuse to answer the “What is a woman?” question? It seems that progressives are schizophrenic. They can acknowledge women on International Woman’s Day, and then deny that women exist when confronted about transgenderism. But this shifting, this fluidity, is the very essence of progressivism. For progressives, gender must be fluid because gender is a social construct. Indeed, for progressives, everything is a social construct so everything is fluid. There are no created natures, no creational “givens.” According to progressivism, each person is her/her/its creator. This is why the only “progress” progressives can make is following the downward spiral the Apostle Paul described in Romans 1:18-32. The entire progressive project is idolatrous. It is also Orwellian: their goal is to use their power to get you to live by lies, to confess to something that you know is not true. This is why we must resist.

2. Liam Thomas (yes, Liam) was a mediocre swimmer when competing against other men. Now that he is a biological male competing against females, he is winning NCAA championships. News flash: Men are bigger, stronger, and faster than women. Christians and conservatives rightly lament that transgenderism threatens to ruin women’s sports. But it is important to understand that the crisis we face is much bigger than transgenderism and it cannot be solved by focusing narrowly on the transgender issue.

The LGBTQ+ revolution is an offshoot of the sexual revolution, going back to at least the 1960s, which was an offshoot of the feminist movement, which has its roots even deeper in American history. I appreciate that some feminists oppose transgenderism in the name of protecting women, but those feminists need to understand that there is a definite link between where feminists in America began generations ago and where we have ended up, with Liam Thomas taking medals and trophies that should have gone to women. Transgenderism is the next logical step in our culture’s rejection of God’s sexual design. And I really do think there is a kind of perverse logic at work. Feminism led women to invade male spaces. Women pushed themselves into roles that had traditionally been reserved to men. This was not necessarily bad in every single case; there are certainly cultural spaces in the modern world in which men and women can work side by side. But the overall effect has been to negate the differences between men and women. And if there are no differences, why shouldn’t men and women compete against each other in the swimming pool? If women can invade men’s spaces, why can’t men invade women’s spaces?

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On January 10, 2022 By Kuyperian In Culture, Family and Children 1

Rhythms and Rituals for Adoring the King

Guest Post by Grant Van Brimmer

We all develop daily routines and rhythms. We all have morning routines, whether well regimented or not, whether that is to always sleep in or to rise early. Again, whether well regimented or not, we also have nightly rhythms. Nevertheless, we are creatures of habit. As James K.A. Smith observed, we are inescapably shaped by the various liturgies we partake in. He goes on to say, “Liturgies aim our love to different ends precisely by training our hearts through our bodies. They prime us to approach the world in a certain way, to value certain things, to aim for certain goals, to pursue certain dreams, to work together on certain projects.”[1]

We develop routines, habits, and rhythms because we are liturgical worshipping creatures. The scriptures teach us that we were created to glorify God (Is 43:7), that daily routine matters (Deut 6) and that we become like what we worship (Ps 115).

Here’s where the rubber meets the road: since our daily lives are lived out of what we love and worship, our routines necessarily shape us. This should cause us to take stock of our routines and consider what might need to change.

Here is a question of appraisal: How often do you verbally proclaim Jesus is King, even if just to yourself?

In the incredibly helpful work Pro Rege: Living Under Christ’s Kingship: Volume 1, Abraham Kuyper contrasts the popular view of Christ within Christian circles with the view of Mohammad in Muslim circles.

Even if you haven’t experienced firsthand the deep adoration Muslims have for Allah and his Prophet Muhammad, most know that it is detestable to speak lightly of Muhammad in Muslim culture.

The discipline of this adoration is commendable. It is also a harsh indictment on evangelicals. Most evangelicals don’t feel any inner anguish when we hear pagans use the name of King Jesus as a swear word. Rather than Jesus’ name being highly revered because it is by which men may be saved (Acts 4:12), it is treated as common.

Kuyper notes that more than the mandatory five prayers a day, many devout Muslims even add a couple of voluntary prayers throughout the day. Kuyper says, “Altogether, this adds up to approximately 1,800 prayers per year, and for some Muslims over 2,500 prayers. In each of them, the commemoration of Muhammad occurs between four and five times. This means that every single worshiper commemorates the name of Muhammad more than ten thousand times per year.”[2] No wonder it is unthinkable to treat their prophet’s name lightly.

Kuyper admits that there is certainly a mechanical (meaningless) element to this practice. Christians must admit that the reason for the mechanical nature of the Muslim prayer life is due to the fact that they are not offering prayers to the true God or a true prophet of God. Christians must not ditch habit, routine, or personal liturgies, just because a pagan does it wrong.

In light of the desire to be conformed into the image of Christ, we develop habits, or daily liturgies, such as prayer and scripture reading to form us into the type of people we aim to be. May I suggest developing a habit of verbally proclaiming the Kingship of Jesus throughout your day? The goal would be to direct your heart towards a deeper adoration and reverence for our King.

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On November 24, 2021 By Kuyperian In Books, Family and Children, History 2

Educational Methods: Indoctrination, Controversy and Journey

Guest Post by Carson Spratt

A car stitches its way down the highway that needles through the shimmering desert. No one but the inhabitants hears the brakes as it slows. It spits two children out in school uniform. “See you later!”

The car drives off, accelerating quickly into oblivion.

The two kids look at each other. The sun begins to suck sweat out of them.
It is very hot in the wilderness today.

I would like to talk about three different ways of teaching.

The first is indoctrination. You’ve been told to hate it, but it resembles one part of true education just like a changeling resembles the baby the fae stole. Indoctrination drills a single lesson, a single position or idea, into the student’s head. This is the truth and there is no other.

Indoctrination creates blind humans. They cannot recognize other perspectives. They don’t even recognize other perspectives as perspectives. To the indoctrinated man, all other thoughts are insanity. They, and they alone, know the truth.

The second is teaching the controversy. As the idea of Darwinism gained bastion status in public schools, Intelligent Design proponents started a campaign begging public schools to “teach the controversy,” that is, include I.D. alongside Darwinism in public schools, teaching both sides as equal options. This was shot down, of course, but since then I’ve heard the phrase advocated in different education questions, whenever some controversy about some theory or knowledge comes along. Teach the controversy, maintain neutrality. Show both sides, and show that you aren’t biased. All existential and fundamental questions get answered with a shrug. Who’s to say?

Teaching the controversy is dropping your kids off in the wilderness, and expecting them to find their own way to civilization. It’s bad parenting, and it certainly isn’t education. But like indoctrination, there’s a warped resemblance to true learning in that heat mirage.

The third is the journey. All education is a journey from falsity to truth, from wickedness to wisdom, from the fear of everything or nothing to the fear of the Lord. Take your students on a journey, and show them how difficult the road to truth is, but for God’s sake don’t let them walk it alone. It is good for them to know how hard it is to walk through the wilderness. But show them that taking them with you through it, not by stranding them there.

One exercise I do with my class involves taking on the character of an atheist and arguing the problem of evil. I state it both logically and emotionally, as strongly as I can. I pull no punches. Then I end the class and tell them to come back tomorrow with an answer. They spend a few minutes in the wilderness. But the next day they come back, and after I hear their answers, I give them the logical and emotional answer to the problem of evil. Not everyone is able to walk the road, but I take them with me. By the end, they know how desolate that wilderness is, but they have also come out of the wilderness to the garden city.

So, yes, teach the controversy. But also teach the answer to the controversy. They must come through the welter of conflicting ideas to safety on the other side.

So, yes, tell them that what you believe is the truth, is the truth. But show them how you get there, remembering that you too can take wrong turns away from the well-lit path of the Word.

If you do teach them the controversy, then your students are not indoctrinated – they have seen the wilderness. They will know how to recognize the tempter who lives there. But you must also bring them out again to the city, or they will be vacant, lost souls, swept clean and ready to be possessed by the schizophrenia of relativism.

Do you not wonder why so many children are medicated? Why so many mental issues and therapists and irrational and insane people? Why has the world gone mad? Because we weaken our children’s mental immune system through indoctrination, making it incapable of dealing with a new idea; or make it comfortable with holding contradictory ideas – a functional insanity. They either do not know any other city besides the indoctrination they live in, or, if they do make it to the wilderness of controversy, they stay there, wandering. If my teacher didn’t even care enough to show me the answer to the contradiction, does it really matter? They shrug their shoulders and decide that they should just believe whatever they want to believe, since smart people disagree and there seems to be no way out of the controversy. If everything is wilderness, why not call it home?

Let your students get dirt on their boots. But don’t make them walk on their own in the wilderness. From the walls of the city of truth, you can see the slums of indoctrination, and the wilderness of controversy alike – both burning in their own way. Show them how far you have come and they will love the city that you have brought them to – and it is that love of truth that makes them truly educated, that prevents them from letting the city become another slum. Someday your children will issue forth from the city as warriors, and take the city to the wilderness. But that’s a journey for another time.

Carson Spratt is a Rhetoric and Humanities teacher at Logos Online School. He lives in Spokane, Washington, with his wife of seven years, Ellie, without whom life would be inconceivable.

On November 1, 2021 By Kuyperian In Podcast Like

KC Podcast: Episode 93, The Liberty of Conscience and COVID

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:37 — 37.6MB)

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Kuyperian contributor, Bill Smith, is the Senior Pastor of Cornerstone Reformed Church in Carbondale, IL. His recent article entitled, “The Liberty of Conscience” published at Kuyperian has drawn some attention and offers a fruitful summary of this important Reformational distinctive.

On September 3, 2021 By Kuyperian In Podcast Like