Homeward Bound

This is a link to an excellent post regarding the recent “falling away” of prominent evangelical author and pastor Joshua Harris. The writer of the famous book I Kissed Dating Goodbye announced that he was “deconstructing” and no longer would call himself a Christian. He also gave an apology to the LGBTQ+ community. Other than the well-known book, I know little of Joshua Harris or his ministry. I have grown increasingly unsurprised when those who walked among us for a time leave the fold. I have witnessed not a few friends and prominent evangelicals fall away the last several years.  I do not want to jump to quick reactions thinking that many of these men and women (like Joshua Harris) were never truly earnest or committed to God at one point in their lives. I do not know the thoughts or intents of their hearts. My vantage point is limited—sufficiently so. While it does not surprise me that people will and do leave the faith, it always saddens me. It also causes me...

I have understood Paul’s warnings of idolatry in Romans 1 to be pertaining to the heart level of humanity. When we do not worship God with our hearts and, instead, worship idol substitutes, God gives us over to the self-destruction of our desires. This happens to individuals as well as societies; both micro and macro levels. Nancy Pearcey takes this same passage and applies it to the realm of the mind and worldview. What happens when we reject God in our philosophy and input some limited substitute in His place? The short answer is: things do not work. Pearcey shows that every alternative worldview is at some point unable to answer the questions that are fundamental to human experience. Something self-evident to human existence has to be sacrificed at the altar: “at some point, every idol-based worldview contradicts reality.” Religious Science sacrifices free will. Post-modernism sacrifices obvious reality. Limited constructs cannot contain the majestic whole of the world w...

In the uncertainties of life I am always struck by the constancy of God. There is sureness in the feet that find their footing in Him. I look about me and it is quite overwhelming to consider the possibilities, the dangers, the opportunities, the pitfalls that each present themselves in varying degrees before me. I feel the pull of self, the growlings of my appetites. I see challenges ahead and I am unsure whether to skirt them or charge them head on. I cannot see very far as the road is dark, but if I focus my eyes, it appears to be forking.  Much is uncertain to us, but to God nothing is. Our very lives, the Scripture informs us, are held in the palm of His hand. Psalm 16 is one of my favorite chapters in the Bible, and I frequently go back to the deep security that can be found in the song of David. Verse 5 says, "The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot."  The battle cry of the modern philosophy preaches that we are the authors of our lives. We a...