http://christredeemerchurch.org/wordpress Examining life with a Gospel perspective Sat, 06 Sep 2008 11:44:41 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en What effect does belief in life-after-death have on life in the here-and-now?  Listen to Steven Pinker, Harvard professor and an avowed atheist, as he weighs in on the subject: [T]he doctrine of a life-to-come is not such an uplifting idea after all because it necessarily devalues life on earth. Just remember the ... http://christredeemerchurch.org/wordpress/archives/113 I have noticed that people tend to like listening to a sermon when it agrees with what they think others should be doing, especially when they are confident that they, themselves, are doing it right. In other words, we tend to hear sermons through the window of our own prejudice.  ... http://christredeemerchurch.org/wordpress/archives/111 History shows us that people are especially dangerous when they have dismissed the thought of divine accountability for their actions. Listen to the British historian Paul Johnson: What is so notable about the twentieth century and a principal cause of its horrors is that great physical power has been acquired by men ... http://christredeemerchurch.org/wordpress/archives/108 Religion can be deadly. There have been those that have done great harm because they feel that God has mandated them to do so. Some have even done great evil in the name of Christ, the Crusades of the Middle Ages perhaps being a chief example. But history shows us ... http://christredeemerchurch.org/wordpress/archives/105 In Western society, the source of stability for the tension between order and freedom has traditionally been found in the ballast of the Christian religion. The Founding Fathers understood the danger of the experiment that they started. Wisdom told them that if they took the power from the king and ... http://christredeemerchurch.org/wordpress/archives/123 In our society there is a tension between freedom and order. As order goes up there is a tendency for freedom to go down. As freedom goes up there is a tendency for order to go down. In the words of the late popular philosopher Eric Hoffer, “When the yearning ... http://christredeemerchurch.org/wordpress/archives/121 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the influential Soviet dissident and arguably the greatest writer of the 20th century, died recently.  It is worth remembering this impressive thinker. Prior to being exiled from the East, he had looked to the Western World as a place of spiritual vitality. But arriving in America in 1974 he ... http://christredeemerchurch.org/wordpress/archives/118 This past week Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn died.  Solzhenitsyn was a Russian writer and arguably the most significant and influential of the Soviet dissidents. Many feel that his books exposing life in the prison camps laid the groundwork for the Soviet Empire’s eventual internal collapse (all apologies to those who think it ... http://christredeemerchurch.org/wordpress/archives/116 We live in a time when the perennial tensions between a sacred vision of society and a secular vision of society are heightened.   Here’s something to consider:   There is a problem with a totally secular society:  It leaves people with the notion that the only reality is the here-and-now, which ... http://christredeemerchurch.org/wordpress/archives/102 The Scriptures make it clear that the church is to be the embodiment of the word of God in the world.  This is what Jesus meant when he spoke of the church as light of the world in Matthew 5:  “You are the light of the world. A city on ... http://christredeemerchurch.org/wordpress/archives/100 One of the concerns of many contemporary Christian thinkers is the dumbing-down of truth.  Nowhere is this clamoring for the lowest common denominator more alarming than in the realm of theology.  Listen to T. S. Elliot:  "The refinement or crudity of theological and philosophical thinking is itself, of course, one of ... http://christredeemerchurch.org/wordpress/archives/88 You no doubt have heard the expression: Let your conscience be your guide. However, can your conscience always be trusted as a reliable guide of what God is telling you? Indeed, the conscience is a vehicle by which God tells us something of Himself, but it is only as good ... http://christredeemerchurch.org/wordpress/archives/82 Many people are asking the question, “Is God still speaking nowadays?” Many who wonder about this are looking for an audible voice, a major miraculous sign in which God could “prove” Himself? In light of this, it is interesting that Jesus repeatedly condemned such clamoring for a sign, saying, “A ... http://christredeemerchurch.org/wordpress/archives/74 Some time ago, I was talking to a guy who has a degree in sub-nuclear physics. He was explaining to me the complexity of design in the universe at that level. He said that after studying it for some time, he was driven to acknowledge that we live in a ... http://christredeemerchurch.org/wordpress/archives/69 The “big story” of history can be summed up in three words:  Construction, Destruction and Reconstruction.  In the beginning God constructed the world to display his beauty.  Then along came sin. We rebelled against God’s beauty, inaugurating an age of destruction and falleness.  But, thank God, this isn’t the end ... http://christredeemerchurch.org/wordpress/archives/64 Central to the message of Jesus is repentance.  It is not only the subject of His first recorded sermon (“Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand’), but also the punch line of the Apostle Peter’s first sermon on the day of Pentecost (“Repent and be baptized…for the forgiveness ... http://christredeemerchurch.org/wordpress/archives/62 Do you want to live as a Christian?  Then expect to be “unorthodox” relative to the world around you. For sure, at points the Gospel will run alongside society, but at other points expect it to cut across the grain.  You see, no culture has a corner on truth; all ... http://christredeemerchurch.org/wordpress/archives/59 You know you’ve come across the genuine article of Christianity when you find people that are genuinely committed to each other in spite of otherwise divisive differences. Listen to biblical scholar Don Carson of Trinity Divinity School: “What binds us [as Christians]…is not common education, common race, common income levels, common ... http://christredeemerchurch.org/wordpress/archives/57 Have you ever found yourself thinking: “The thing that bothers me about Christianity is it’s so narrow, and I don’t want to be a narrow person. I want to be an open-minded person”?  If you’ve ever thought this, let me assure you you’re not alone. Many have struggled with the ... http://christredeemerchurch.org/wordpress/archives/55 It has been my observation that nothing makes one more accepting and truly open-minded than the gospel of Jesus Christ.  I find that it has a way of compelling me not only to evaluate the prejudice of others, but more importantly, to evaluate my own prejudice. The former is relatively ... http://christredeemerchurch.org/wordpress/archives/53