Daniel Moss's List: religion

• 1.     Don’t equate the biblical kingdom of God with any human political party or nation. We must maintain the distinctiveness between God’s kingdom and the kingdoms of this world. We must never fuse the two (John 18:36; Matt. 6:33).

   

  2.     Don’t elevate a politician to messianic status. People often falsely think a politician can single-handedly produce supernatural social results. We have one Lord, and we must resist any attempt to exalt politicians to unrealistic heights (Matt. 7:15; 1 Pet. 3:15).

   

  3.     Don’t just vote, but pray for the leaders of all political parties. Christians can be tempted to bless the politician of their choice, and curse his or her opponent, but remember, we must pray even for our enemies (1 Tim. 2:1–2; Matt. 5:44).

   

  4.     Don’t forget that your ultimate security is in the unshakeable kingdom of God. Many Christians often elevate the outcome of presidential elections to an apocalyptic status. If a particular presidential candidate does not win, we begin to think or act as if the world will end. In so doing, however, we express an unbelief in the active sovereignty of God over human affairs (Heb. 12:26–29).

   

  5.     Don’t bring the polarization of partisan politics into the family of God. Every Christian has freedom of conscience before God, and we must guard against allowing political perspectives to divide the church (Rom. 16:17; 1 Cor. 1:11–12).

   

  6.     Don’t demonize anyone. Every person has been created in the image of God, and Christians must not demonize or dehumanize other people, whether we agree with them politically or not (Col. 3:8; James 4:12).

   

  7.     Don’t engage in angry, hostile confrontation. Present your political convictions through civil debate and rational dialogue instead. Confrontational arguments demonstrate an ugly pride that demeans Jesus Christ (James 1:19–20; 2 Tim. 2:14).

   

  8.     Don’t become so intertwined with one political party that you forfeit your independence. When you do, you lose your right to be heard and to speak and clarify biblical truth to all politicians and political parties (1 Tim. 3:15; Rom. 3:4).

   

  9.     Don’t allow yourself to support attempts to divide races, male and female, rich and poor, or young and old. Partisan politics often divides society into voting blocks, and separates society instead of uniting it. Christians should function as peacemakers and reconcilers in the public square and should resist every temptation to join the game of dividing people for political gain (Matt. 5:9; 2 Cor. 5:18–19).

   

  10.  Don’t simply curse the darkness, but constructively engage it. The cultural and missional mandate of kingdom Christians is not to curse the darkness in our world, but to act as illuminating light and preserving salt. We must share the light of God’s truth and work to maintain the common welfare of our nation by overcoming evil through doing good (Matt. 5:13–16).

• Scriptures that testify against homosexual behavior—including Leviticus 18:22, 20:13; Romans 1:26-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; 1 Timothy 1:9-10—are so clear and specific that they defy reinterpretation.

• John Adams and John Hancock:
    We Recognize No Sovereign but God, and no King but Jesus! [April 18, 1775]
• “In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible  of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for Divine protection. Our prayers,  Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered… do we imagine we  no longer need His assistance?” [Constitutional Convention, Thursday  June 28, 1787]

• posted this to facebook - Daniel Moss on 2010-05-28

• Since I'm attending my older son's college graduation this week, this news item caught my eye. I watched the video, and laughed. I was pleased that the school principal showed respect, even though he was clearly taken by surprise by students loudly and gleefully (you can see some of them grinning in anticipation just before they disrupt their graduation ceremony) reciting the Lord's Prayer. 

  The ACLU had bulled the school into forbidding graduates to pray or say anything of a religious nature at their ceremony. The result: the ACLU ended up getting far more religious speech than they would have had they not attempted to shut religious graduates up in the first place.

   

  The ACLU, which always gets its knickers in a twist when it doesn't get its own way, was spluttering with outrage at this unseemly outburst of free speech. However, their response to the noisy graduates (whose "crime" was, in effect, telling the ACLU where to get off) was disturbing. ACLU attorney Benjamin Stevenson said, "Something should have been done to stop the recitation of the Lord's Prayer." The recitation took, what--about 20 seconds? What did the guardians of free speech expect school authorities to do? Stand by with clubs just in case somebody said the wrong thing?

   

  Kinda reminds you of the Gestapo, doesn't it?

• Despite their reputation as symbols of baby-boomer America, Protestant megachurches attract a younger crowd and more singles than the average Protestant church, according to large-scale study released Tuesday.

   

  The survey also found distressing news for a movement that took off in the 1980s and remains influential in evangelical Christianity: megachurch-goers volunteer less and give less money than other churchgoers.

• Among the megachurch report's highlights:

   

  • The average age of megachurch attenders is 40, compared to nearly 53 at a typical Protestant church. Nearly two-thirds of megachurch attenders are under 45, double the numbers in Protestant congregations of all sizes. The vast majority are between 18 and 44.

   

  • Nearly a third of megachurch attenders are single, compared to 10% in a typical Protestant church. They also tend to be wealthier and better educated.

   

  • Nearly all those surveyed — 98%, including visitors — described themselves as a "committed follower of Jesus Christ." Nearly a quarter hadn't been in any church for a long time before coming to the megachurch.

   

  • Sixty-two percent of megachurch attendees said they had experienced much spiritual growth in the past year. But that does not always translate to behavior churches expect of members: nearly 45% of megachurch attenders never volunteer at the church and 32% give little or no money to the congregation.

• During a couple telephone discussions shortly after their last dialogue,  Flew explained to Habermas that he was considering becoming a theist. While Flew  did not change his position at that time, he concluded that certain  philosophical and scientific considerations were causing him to do some serious  rethinking. He characterized his position as that of atheism standing in tension  with several huge question marks.

   

  Then, a year later, in January 2004, Flew informed Habermas that he had  indeed become a theist. While still rejecting the concept of special revelation,  whether Christian, Jewish or Islamic, nonetheless he had concluded that theism  was true. In Flew’s words, he simply “had to go where the evidence leads.” (7) 

• HABERMAS: You very kindly noted that our  debates and discussions had influenced your move in the direction of theism. (11)  You mentioned that this initial influence contributed in part to your comment  that naturalistic efforts have never succeeded in producing “a plausible  conjecture as to how any of these complex molecules might have evolved from  simple entities.” (12)  Then in your recently rewritten introduction to the forthcoming edition of your  classic volume God and Philosophy, you say that the original version of  that book is now obsolete. You mention a number of trends in theistic  argumentation that you find convincing, like big bang cosmology, fine tuning and  Intelligent Design arguments. Which arguments for God’s existence did you find  most persuasive?

   

  FLEW: I think that the most impressive  arguments for God’s existence are those that are supported by recent scientific  discoveries. I’ve never been much impressed by the kalam cosmological  argument, and I don’t think it has gotten any stronger recently. However, I  think the argument to Intelligent Design is enormously stronger than it was when  I first met it.

• HABERMAS: You also recently told me that you  do not find the moral argument to be very persuasive. Is that right?

   

  FLEW: That’s correct. It seems to me that for  a strong moral argument, you’ve got to have God as the justification of  morality. To do this makes doing the morally good a purely prudential matter  rather than, as the moral philosophers of my youth used to call it, a good in  itself. (Compare the classic discussion in Plato’s Euthyphro.)
• FLEW: Absolutely. It seems to me that Richard  Dawkins constantly overlooks the fact that Darwin himself, in the fourteenth  chapter of The Origin of Species, pointed out that his whole argument  began with a being which already possessed reproductive powers. This is the  creature the evolution of which a truly comprehensive theory of evolution must  give some account. Darwin himself was well aware that he had not produced such  an account. It now seems to me that the findings of more than fifty years of DNA  research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to  design.

2 more annotations...

• dont just watch the video's make sure to read the text...it's great! - Daniel Moss on 2008-05-08