The Intolerance of Tolerance in a Culture of Relativism

Dear readers, I recommend that you read the whole book after reading the quote below. Thanks again for visiting the blog and reading the articles. We appreciate your commends and suggestions. CPI


Tolerance has come to mean that no one is right and no one is wrong and, indeed, the very act of stating that someone else’s views are immoral or incorrect is now taken to be intolerant (of course, from this same point of view, it is all right to be intolerant of those who hold to objectively true moral or religious positions). Once the existence of knowable truth in religion and ethics is denied, authority (the right to be believed and obeyed) gives way to power (the ability to force compliance), reason gives way to rhetoric, the speech writer is replaced by the makeup man, and spirited but civil debate in the culture wars is replaced by politically correct special-interest groups who have nothing left but political coercion to enforce their views on others. While the Christian faith clearly teaches that believers are to be involved as good citizens in the state, nevertheless, it is obvious why so many secularists are addicted to politics today because political power is a surrogate for a Higher Power. As Friedrich Nietzsche said, once God died in Western culture — that is, once the concept of God no longer informed the major idea-generating centers of society turned secular — there would be turmoil and horrible secular wars unchecked by traditional morality because the state would come to be a surrogate god for many.

(Moreland, J. P. Love Your God with All Your Mind: The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul).

Christ and the Academy: An Interview with D.A. Carson

by D.A. Carson

Tabletalk: When did God call you to ministry and what were the circumstances that surrounded your call?

D.A. Carson: I was well into a degree in chemistry at McGill University, with well-formed plans to pursue a PhD in organic synthesis, when the Lord began to tug me in another direction. God used several independent influences. The first was the pastor of the church I was attending in Montreal. He told me one summer that he wanted me to serve as his apprentice. I told him that he probably had me confused with someone else. After all, there were several in our college-and-careers group who were contemplating pastoral ministry, but I wasn’t one of them. He assured me that he had not made a mistake—I was the one he wanted. We had a substantial argument, and I “won.” I did not serve as his apprentice. But that was the first step in jogging me to consider a change of direction—and all the pastor was doing, of course, was obeying 2 Timothy 2:2.

When I worked in a lab in Canada’s federal government (plugging away at a problem connected with air pollution), I discovered that some of my colleagues hated their work and longed for retirement, while others idolized their chemistry and dreamed of the big breakthrough that would win a Nobel Prize. I wasn’t in either camp. I thoroughly enjoyed what I was doing, but chemistry was not God. I was, after all, a Christian. At the time, I was devoting my weekends to helping another young man plant a church in the Ottawa Valley. That, too, began to tug at my heart. That autumn, I heard a missionary preach on Ezekiel 22, where God says, “I sought for a man to stand in the gap before me, but I found none.” The Spirit of God used that sermon to make every fiber of my being want to cry out, “Here am I! Send me!” So I never pursued graduate chemistry, and in due course, after more fledgling experiences in ministry, I went off to gain an MDiv in a small seminary in Toronto. That was the autumn of 1967.

TT: Given the large quantity and high quality of work you are able to produce, what does your average workday and workweek look like?

DC: My schedule varies so much from day to day and from week to week that it is difficult to give you a realistic picture. Many weeks during the academic term, my working hours are heavily tied to responsibilities at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS). One year in three, however, I have no regular lectures at TEDS—though I do maintain my PhD students. In essence, I wear four hats: TEDSresponsibilities, preaching and lecturing here and there, The Gospel Coalition (TGC) responsibilities, and writing. Some of these overlap. For example, some of the writing is tied to lecturing, while some of the speaking is tied to TGC. But each of these domains imposes its own urgencies at different times: writing produces its deadlines, syllabi just have to be created by assigned dates, TGCconferences and other meetings have fixed spots in the calendar, and so forth. Three secrets of productivity, however, are worth mentioning: (1) Learn to fill in the little empty periods that clutter each day. (2) Don’t fritter. When you work, work hard; when you are not working, quit entirely. (3) Discover how different aspects of your work can leverage other aspects of your work. For example, choosing your reading to feed into things that you’ll be preparing over the next six or nine months adds to godly efficiency.

TT: What is the best way for parents to prepare their children for the attacks on their faith they may face in college?

DC: There is no formulaic answer and no guarantee. For a start, our children themselves are extraordinarily diverse. Many will be tempted by postmodern assumptions. Others will feel far greater threats from biologists, cosmologists, or psychologists who operate under the assumptions of raw atheism or, worse, functional atheism. All I can do is enumerate some values and practices in the home that seem to me to be wise, biblically faithful, and useful in mitigating the dangers. These are exemplary, not exhaustive.

First, the home should encourage vigorous Christian understanding. The most dangerous seedbed for intellectual rebellion is a home where faith is sentimental and even anti-intellectual, and where opponents are painted as ignorant knaves, because eventually our children discover that there are some really nice people who are atheists and agnostics, and they can present arguments in sophisticated, gentle, and persuasive fashion.

Similarly, the local church with young people who are heading off to college should be doing what it can to prepare them—first with a solid grasp of Christian essentials, and second with the rudiments of responsible apologetics.

At the same time, both the home and the church should be living out a Christian faith that is more than intellectually rigorous. It should be striving for biblically-faithful authenticity across the board: genuine love for God and neighbor, living with eternity in view, quickness to confess sin and seek reconciliation, a concern for the lost and the broken, faithfulness in praise and intercessory prayer, a transparent delight in holiness, and a contagious joy in God. Even if our children are sucked into intellectual nihilism for a while, over the long haul it is important that they remember what biblically-faithful Christianity looks like in the home and in the church.

Fourth, wisdom in shaping our kids demands more structure when they are young; more discussion, carefully monitored controls, and a safety net as they grow older; and a willingness, in most instances, to wait to be asked for advice when they have genuinely left the nest and are no longer dependent on our roof or our wallets.

Finally, pray for them. Pray for them especially diligently when you recognize, as you repeatedly will, that unless the Lord builds the house, those who labor do so in vain.

TT: Skepticism toward Christianity in academia has led to anti-intellectualism among certain evangelicals. How should evangelicals approach scholarship?

DC: A long essay on this topic would only begin to explore the subject. I concur that some anti-intellectualism is nothing but a thoughtless reaction to the skepticism toward Christianity found in many academic circles. But some of it is the pride of those who can do things with their hands but who do not or cannot make much of intellectual pursuits. Intellectual arrogance is still arrogance; blue-collar arrogance is still arrogance. The right response, for the Christian, begins with repentance and contrition, and a generous recognition that God gives different gifts to human beings in general and to the church in particular. Where the anti-intellectualism is a defensive posture against skepticism in academia, surely the right Christian response is the example of the Apostle Paul, who was determined to bring every thought into submission to Christ. That means we ought to be encouraging our best and brightest to demonstrate love for God with their minds and hearts, taking on the strongholds of intellectual lostness with exactly the same kind of missionary zeal that we want to take on the strongholds of, say, Islam and Buddhism. Moreover, the need is not just evangelistic and apologetic. Much of this work should be motivated by a passionate desire to offer God our best in every domain of life, whether we are grinding valves on a motorcycle engine or wrestling with the magisterial voices of the Western philosophical tradition. The Kuyperian vision of not one square inch where Jesus does not say, “This is mine!” is not a restrictively geographical sweep.

TT: What book projects are you currently working on?

DC: As I write these lines, I have in front of me the page-proofs of Jesus the Son of God: A Christological Title Frequently Ignored, Sometimes Misunderstood, and Currently Abused, a little book to be published by Crossway in November 2012.

I’m days away from finishing the revision of the seventh edition of New Testament Commentary Survey. God willing, I’m not more than weeks away from finishing the long overdue bookEvangelicalism.

And the next commentary will be on the epistles of John, in the New International Greek Testament Commentary series.

---

D.A. Carson is research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Ill., and a council member of The Gospel Coalition. He is a frequent conference speaker and lecturer in churches and academic settings around the world. He is the author or coauthor of more than forty-five books, including An Introduction to the New Testament, A Call to Spiritual Reformation, The God Who Is There, Worship by the Book, and the Gold Medallion Award-winning The Gagging of God.

A Lost Generation

“Our generation is lost to the truth of God, to the reality of divine revelation, to the content of God’s will, to the power of His redemption, and to the authority of His Word. For this loss it is paying dearly in a swift relapse to paganism. The savages are stirring again; you can hear them rumbling and rustling in the tempo of our times…. (Carl F.H. Henry (1913-2003), Twilight of a Great Civilization).

That is the history of our generation, we have lost everything for the sake of instant gratification in the pool of  materialism, and a culture of relativism. As our kids swim through the sea of uncertainty in the river of political correctness, I fear we have already lost the next generation in the cosmic battle of Postmodernity. This lost according to Henry, is causing us dearly in a swift relapse to neopaganism in the new world order where Truth has become moving target (Isaiah 59:14-15). 

It is not too late to turn this ship around to the divine reality of God's revelation, to the content of his will, and above all to the power of his redemption (Jeremiah 7:16). That redemptive power can only be achieve through Christ alone, scripture alone, faith alone, grace alone, and to the glory of God alone (read John chapters 6, 15, and 17)

Centerpoint

Stay the Course (from Piper's website) wwwidesiringgod.org

“Here is a call for the endurance of the saints” (Revelation 14:12).

We all long for rest and refreshment. That’s a God-given longing that he promises to fulfill: “I will satisfy the weary soul, and every languishing soul I will replenish” (Jeremiah 31:25).

And in a very real way Jesus gives rest to “all who labor and are heavy laden” and come to him (Matthew 11:28). But in this age, it is not the complete rest.

In this age, Jesus grants us the gospel rest of ceasing the impossible labor of self-atonement for our sins (2 Corinthians 5:21). But in embracing the gospel we find ourselves also drafted into a war — a war to keep believing the gospel and a war to spread it to others. In this age we “strive to enter that [complete] rest” of the age to come (Hebrews 4:11).

And wars are exhausting — especially long ones. That’s why you are often tired. Most soldiers who experience the fierceness of combat want to get out of it. That’s why you feel urges to escape or surrender. That’s why there are times you’re tempted to give up.

But don’t give up. No, rather “take courage! Do not let your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded” (2 Chronicles 15:7).

Don’t give up when that familiar sin, still crouching at your door after all these years, pounces again with temptation. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it (1 Corinthians 10:13).

Don’t give up when you feel that deep soul weariness from long battles with persistent weaknesses. “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me (2 Corinthians 12:8–9).

Don’t give up when your long prayed-for prayers have not yet been answered. And he told them [the parable of the persistent widow] to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart (Luke 18:1).

Don’t give up when the devil’s fiery darts of doubt land and make you reel. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day…in all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one (Ephesians 6:13,16).

Do not give up when the fragmenting effect of multiple pressures seems relentless. But as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger . . . (2 Corinthians 6:4–5).

Do not give up when the field the Lord has assigned you to is hard and the harvest does not look promising: And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. (Galatians 6:9)

Do not give up when you labor in obscurity and you wonder how much it even matters. Your Father who sees in secret will reward you (Matthew 6:4).

Do not give up when your reputation is damaged because you are trying to be faithful to Jesus. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account (Matthew 5:11).

Do not give up when waiting on God seems endless. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:30–31)

Don’t give up when you have failed in sin. Don’t wallow. Repent (again), get your eyes off yourself and back on Jesus, get up and get back in the fight. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9); if we are faithless, he remains faithful — for he cannot deny himself (2 Timothy 2:13).

Jesus knows your works (Revelation 2:2) and he understands the war (Hebrews 12:3). “Fight the good fight of the faith” (1 Timothy 6:12). Finish the race (2 Timothy 4:7). “By your endurance you will gain your lives” (Luke 21:19).

Don’t give up.

Jon Bloom

How Shall We Then Live?

Eric Hoffer (1902-), "When freedom destroys order, the yearning for order will destroy freedom." At that point the words left or right will make no diference. They are only two roads to the same end. There is no difference between an authoritarian government from the right or the left: the results are the same. An elite, an authoritarianism as such, will gradually force form on society so that it will not go on to chaos. And most people will accept it-from the desire for personal peace and affluence, from apathy, and from the yearning for order to assure the functioning of some political system, business, and the affairs of daily life. That is just what Rome did with Caesar Augustus.

Francis A. Schaeffer. How Should We Then Live? (L'Abri 50th Anniversary Edition): The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture (Kindle Locations 2221-2222). Kindle Edition.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Bible Conference, in Partnership with CenterPoint International, Liberia

Thanks to all the thousands of Pastors who attended the Pastor's conference in Bomi Hills Feb 19-22. Thanks to Pastors' Jeff, Dan A, and Dan M for their Expository teaching of these Pastors from the book of Titus. I will be sharing some of these photos of the conference as I slowly overcome my jet lagged. Thanks for visiting the site, praying and giving to the work in Africa. We covet your prayers for the coming months and years as we plan to equip, and spiritually arm our Pastors with God's word. We covet your prayers as you agonize with us on bended kneels as we change and influence our culture one verse at a time. Your partnership is greatly appreciated.



www.centerpointinternational.org

From New Birth to an Inheritance

I just returned from Liberia where I met with Pastors, church leadership, friends and family to share my vision with them. Liberia is doing well some what financially as things return to normal. But the spiritual health of the nation is slowly declining in the face of a religious awakening. Every block there is a church or worship center. Sunday is like everyone returning or going to Jerusalem for worship. The streets are filled with people going and coming from church. Everyone seemed happy and loving one another.

But when you look beneath the veneer of reality the story is different, politically, and religiously. We are morally unzipped, and intellectually uncurbed, to quote Carl Henry. With 9000 UN Peace Keep Forces in the country, the flow of money from relatives living in America and the world; the 1989-2003 civil war is a thing of the past, and no one remembered why we fought and why we killed so many people. Every aspect of the culture is corrupt or getting corrupt. The church is not exempted from these vices, but find herself in the midst of evil and corruption; and doing nothing about it.

Yet, there's hope, in that we find traces of God everywhere we turn in Liberia. He's working behind the scene touching and changing lives. Life of faithfulness, honesty, honor, and wearing the banner of truth in their daily lives. We want to be part of the answers and solutions to our nation's ills. We broke it, therefore, we must help to rebuild it, and rebuilding is always difficult, especially spiritual restoration of a declining culture. Listen to the weeping of the weeping Prophet: "8“Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail. 9 Will you steal, murder, commit adultery,  swear falsely,  make offerings to Baal,  and go after other gods that you have not known, 10 and then come and stand before me in this house,  u which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—only to go on doing all these abominations?" (Jer 7:8-10, ESV). CPI

The Nicene Creed

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made. Who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was Incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the living and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end. And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets. And I believe one holy catholic* and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

The Athanasian Creed

“Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic* faith;
Which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.
And the catholic* faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity;
Neither confounding the persons, nor dividing the substance.
For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit.
But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is all one, the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal.
Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit.
The Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Spirit uncreated.
The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Spirit incomprehensible.
The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Spirit eternal.
And yet there are not three eternals, but one eternal.
As also there are not three uncreated nor three incomprehensibles, but one uncreated and one incomprehensible.
So likewise the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, and the Holy Spirit almighty;
And yet there are not three almighties, but one almighty.
So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God;
And yet they are not three Gods, but one God.
So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Spirit Lord;
And yet they are not three Lords, but one Lord.
For like as we are compelled by the Christian truth to acknowledge every person by himself to be God and Lord;
So we are forbidden by the catholic* religion to say: There are three Gods or three Lords.
The Father is made of none, neither created nor begotten.
The Son is of the Father alone; not made nor created, but begotten.
The Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son; neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.
So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Spirit, not three Holy Spirit’s.
And in this Trinity none is afore, or after another; none is greater, or less than another.
But the whole three persons are co-eternal, and co-equal.
So that in all things, as said before, the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshipped.
He therefore that will be saved must thus think of the Trinity.
Furthermore it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe rightly the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
For the right faith is that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and man.
God of the substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds; and man of the substance of His mother, born in the world.
Perfect God and perfect man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting.
Equal to the Father as touching His Godhead, and inferior to the Father as touching His manhood.
Who, although He is God and man, yet He is not two, but one Christ.
One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of the manhood into God.
One altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person.
For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ.
Who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, rose again the third day from the dead;
He ascended into heaven, He sits on the right hand of the Father, God Almighty;
From there He shall come to judge the living and the dead.
At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies;
And shall give account of their own works.
And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting. And they that have done evil into everlasting fire.
This is the catholic* faith, which except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved.”


Definition of Chalcedon

Therefore, following the holy fathers, we all with one accord teach men to acknowledge one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man, consisting also of a reasonable soul and body; of one substance with the Father as regards his Godhead, and at the same time of one substance with us as regards his manhood; like us in all respects, apart from sin; as regards his Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages, but yet as regards his manhood begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin, the God-bearer; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ; even as the prophets from earliest times spoke of him, and our Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us, and the creed of the fathers has handed down to us.

*Catholic here refers to the 'universal' church and not to the Roman Catholic Church.