BIBLE ENRICHED SPIRITUAL TRUTHS

Monday, 29 June 2020

White, Black, and Blue: Christians Disagree Over Policing

Black Christians overwhelmingly say police treatment is biased against them. Why don’t white evangelicals believe them?

Do police officers generally treat black and white Americans alike?

White evangelicals are more likely to say “yes” than any other major religious demographic in the United States. Black Protestants are most likely to disagree.

This rift has appeared repeatedly in surveys on American policing over the past five years, as have disparities in how these two groups understand high-profile police killings of black men and in how police make them feel. The numbers are striking:

A 2015 poll from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) found white evangelical Protestants were the only major religious group in which a majority (62%) said police generally treat white and black people equally. Only 20 percent of minority Protestants agreed.
Survey data from Pew Research Center and the Baylor Religion Survey in 2017 showed that gap between white evangelicals and black Protestants was intact two years later.
The same 2015 PRRI poll found 6 in 10 white evangelicals called high-profile police killings of black men isolated incidents; 7 in 10 minority Protestants said they see a broader pattern.
In a 2018 poll by PRRI, the isolated incident vs. broader pattern contrast was starker: Now 7 in 10 white evangelicals said the deaths were isolated incidents, while 84 percent of black Protestants said there’s a pattern.
And the 2018 Cooperative Congressional Election Survey showed white evangelicals and black Protestants were, of 16 religious demographics, furthest apart on whether the police make them feel safe or unsafe.

The latest of these polls (the most recent I’ve found) is two years old, and it’s possible opinions have shifted some, especially over the past few weeks, as the police killing of George Floyd in ...

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I’m a Professional Evangelist. This Book Made Me Fall in Love with the Gospel All Over Again.

After reading Rebecca Manley Pippert’s follow-up to “Out of the Saltshaker,” I’ve never been more excited to talk about Jesus.

As a preacher and evangelist, I like to say that the application for any sermon—no matter the Bible passage—should be: “Tell your friends about Jesus.” It’s a joke, of course. Because that’s a lazy application—one guaranteed to get guilty looks from the congregation.

But why are we so bad at telling our friends about Jesus? In part, because in today’s post-Christian Western world, we’re told to keep our beliefs to ourselves. Our faith is supposed to be private, not public. In this environment, talking about Jesus is seen as judgmental, intolerant, and oppressive.

Last year, an article in Christianity Today carried a revealing headline: “Half of Millennial Christians Say It’s Wrong to Evangelize.” Evidently, evangelism is hated by significant numbers of both Christians and non-Christians! Who would have thought that a mutual dislike for evangelism would unite us all?

And yet, a desire to share the gospel with friends runs—or at least should run—through the DNA of every Christian. So how can we start talking about Jesus again?

This is the question at the heart of Rebecca Manley Pippert’s latest book , Stay Salt. Pippert, of course, is best known for her classic book on evangelism, Out of the Saltshaker and Into the World: Evangelism as a Way of Life. First published in 1979, Out of the Saltshaker was written to equip believers for evangelism in a culture that was drifting in post-Christian directions. Four decades later, those forces have only accelerated, but Pippert hasn’t lost any confidence that the gospel message can break through walls of hostility and indifference, even in the context of everyday conversations. As the subtitle ...

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Saturday, 27 June 2020

Finding Joy in the Simple Gospel Again

As we re-emerge from COVID-19’s initial impact, how will we find joy in sharing the simple gospel again?

If there’s anything COVID-19 has achieved, it is the amplification of our feelings of isolation, fear, anxiety, and rampant uncertainty. Why would we not feel this way when the foundations of our lives have been shaken and the roots of our idolatrous worship have been left exposed?

In Matthew 12:34, Jesus reminds us that out of the overflow of our hearts, our mouth speaks. What have you heard or spoken during this uncertain time? If you’re anything like me, your words have most likely been laced with fear, full of anxiety, and not as life-giving as you’d expect.

As we re-emerge from COVID-19’s initial impact, how will we find joy in sharing the simple gospel again?

The simple joy of sharing good news

Challenging times can sometimes rob you of your joy, yet our joy should be fueling our mission now more than ever. In Romans 15:11, Paul reminds us that there’s something infinitely and magnificently great about God that evokes worship for people from diverse settings all around the world.

There’s nothing greater that evokes joy and stokes the embers of joy in our heart than sharing the gospel with those in great need around us. Jeremiah 15:16 remind us to take courage in the gospel: “Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart, for I am called by your name, O Lord, God of hosts.”

Why is it that we’re feeling anxious and somewhat discombobulated? Could it be that God’s exposing something else in our hearts—counterfeit gods that have rallied for our attention and worship?

In Counterfeit Gods, Tim Keller reminds us that these idols or counterfeit gods are anything so central and essential to your life that, should ...

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Friday, 26 June 2020

Cedarville President Reinstated Despite ‘Clouding’ Former Employee’s Past Abuse

Trustees release a summary of findings from an internal investigation, while a pastor who oversaw the restoration process resigns.

Cedarville University president Thomas White has been reinstated despite an internal investigation concluding that he kept the university from knowing the “specific nature” of a former professor’s abusive past.

Two members of the board of trustees have resigned in protest, saying the investigation’s findings were “extreme troubling.” Some of the Cedarville faculty say they have lost trust in the school’s leader.

White was put on leave May 1, a week after he fired Anthony Moore. Moore was three years into a five-year “restoration plan” as an employee at the Baptist school when White said he learned “additional information related to [his] past” and ended his employment at the university, where he had taught theology, helped coach basketball, and served as a special advisor on diversity.

While White knew about the behavior that cost Moore his previous job as pastor at The Village Church in Fort Worth, White said he didn’t realize the extent of the misconduct, that Moore had reportedly filmed a subordinate in the shower multiple times over months, not just one or two times. CT reported that Moore’s Cedarville colleagues, fellow professors and basketball coaches, said they were not informed that his sinful past involved abuse.

According to a statement released by Cedarville trustees Friday afternoon, an internal investigation by the legal firm Husch Blackwell LLP found no evidence of sexual misconduct by Moore while he was employed at Cedarville.

The report acknowledged White’s “benevolent motivation” in hiring Moore under a plan to counsel and restore him, but said “it is reasonable to infer… President ...

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American Bible Society’s New President Sees a Bible Revolution

Robert Briggs will oversee the launch of a Philadelphia-based Bible history center and continue to foster partnerships to accelerate global translations.

As the new president of the American Bible Society (ABS), Robert Briggs will balance the work of spurring Scriptural engagement in his own country with the ongoing efforts to complete Bible translations around the world.

A 20-year veteran of the ABS and a founding member of the steering committee of Every Tribe Every Nation, Briggs—who was announced as president this week—knows these causes well.

Under his leadership, the society will launch a landmark historical center in Philadelphia designed to showcase the Bible’s role in the lives of the Founding Fathers and early American history. ABS itself exemplifies these connections, with John Jay, Francis Scott Key, and Elias Boudinot among its early leaders.

But its work is not only American. The society partners with national societies in other countries to collaborate toward global goals around speeding up Bible translation and access.

“This is deeply embedded in my heart, to be a part of, really unprecedented translation movement that is bringing God’s word in the entire globe,” he said in an interview this week with CT. “We’re watching a revolution happen right before our eyes.”

The ministry is also looking at digital packaging, social media, and new platforms to bring a revival of Bible engagement in its own country.

After President Donald Trump posed with the book in front of St. John’s Church in Washington D.C., ABS shared a statement about seeing the Bible as more than a symbol and launched a Bible giveaway

“Some of those people were getting Bibles for the first time. That’s really our emphasis—to provide the first Bible that people will actually engage with,” said Briggs. “Somebody might’ve ...

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Controversy and Coronavirus Keep Church Plants Out of Schools

Church of the Highlands’s expulsion in Birmingham has some pastors worried about growing scrutiny.

When Alabama megachurch pastor Chris Hodges liked recent social media posts from conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, he launched a chain of events that led to two of his church’s campuses being expelled from their meeting spaces in Birmingham public schools.

Hodges has met with African American leaders at Church of the Highlands and apologized for his engagement with “multiple insensitive social media posts.”

As pundits continue to debate whether the city’s expulsion represents viewpoint discrimination—former US Attorney General Jeff Sessions called it “an attack on both religious liberty and freedom of speech”—some Christian leaders wonder whether the case will draw more scrutiny toward the thousands of congregations who use leased space in public schools.

Hodges’ congregation, the Church of the Highlands, began meeting in 2001 in a local high school auditorium. It has since grown to become the biggest church in Alabama, with more than 20 campuses worshiping a mix of their own buildings and rented public spaces. Two of those sites had their leases with Birmingham public schools terminated June 9 following two weeks of controversy over Hodges’ social media activity, which was brought forward by a public school teacher.

The Church of the Highlands controversy represents the most high-profile dispute over churches meeting in public schools in recent years. But the religious bias against church plants has been around far longer, according to J. D. Payne, a church planting scholar at Samford University.

Religious freedom advocates argue that if public schools open their space to community organizations during off-hours, they cannot discriminate ...

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Living Water that Satisfies Completely

All of us are thirsty, longing for something that will satisfy us completely.

In J. R. R. Tolkien’s famous series The Lord of the Rings, a creature called Gollum becomes consumed by an obsession with the One Ring. Gollum was originally a hobbit-like creature known as Smeagol, who murdered his friend to take possession of the ring shortly after he discovered it.

Smeagol’s family later shunned and exiled him because of his deceitful and disruptive ways when using the ring, which made him invisible. Gollum had an insatiable hunger for the ring and its power. He centered his entire life around owning it and recovering it after he lost it, and it cost him everything.

Although our cravings may not be as extreme as Gollum’s addiction, we all have things we desire in life. Children chase after an extra cookie or longer time at recess. Adults desire certain relationships or positions at work. We all tend to place a higher priority on pursuing those things that we believe will satisfy a longing in our hearts. We were created to hunger and strive with the hope of satisfaction; the question is “What will satisfy?”

In John 4, Jesus encountered a woman at a well. Although she may not have realized it, this Samaritan woman was needy for a solution to her sin; as with all people today, apart from Christ, we are all enemies of God.

Jesus highlighted her need for a permanent solution to her deepest thirst, telling her that she should be begging him for a drink of the water he was able to offer—“living water.”

Without new birth in Christ (see John 3), we all have dirty hearts and we are all riddled with sin. Our sinful nature has estranged humanity from God since the fall. In fact, not only are we estranged from God but our sin causes there to be enmity, or hostility, between ...

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