Exile

What if Naturalism (by which I mean Darwinian Naturalism) is the tribe from the East sent to judge God's chosen people for years of unrepentant, oppressive absolutizing and power-mongering? Just as Assyria and Babylon were the inevitable consequences of Israel's disdainful rejection of the Lord, so too we Western Christians find ourselves being captured and led into exile.

Do you not find it to be so? Look about you and see. Religious thought is no longer acceptable in the public sphere. Religious claims to truth are no longer valid; science is Omni-Science. We are in exile. And keenly do we feel it. But more like a child crying 'unfair!' because our toy megaphone has been violently taken from us. Some of us sulk in the corner of the school yard; some of us cry to our Mothers. Most of us, or at least the most publicly visible, get mad, continuing to yell and scream madly, megaphone or no. This indeed sounds pity-able and unjust, until we realize we are the bully on the playground who is being suffered by the other children no longer.

We must recognize the cause for our being overthrown, captured, and discarded. We ought to consider the possiblity that our current exile is in part (the part that matters most) the chastisement of the Divine Hand. Certainly there are some who have done this, who are doing this, for the Lord in his mysterious faithfulness always provides a remnant. Would that you and I would be that remnant. We must repent to the Lord and change how we treat the world, not merely because we are being treated cruelly, but because we are pierced and stricken with the pain and remorse of our own acts of betrayal and hard-heartedness.

This is what I do

I realize I haven't posted in months which is a bit shameful. Since my last post, I've begun working at Probe Ministries in Richardson (about a 10 minute drive from my house) as the Program Coordinator. Well, what is that? My job title is a bit vague because I have various responsibilities, but basically I am the go-between for our speakers and their hosts. For example, a youth pastor from Wisconsin calls wanting a speaker for a weekend conference she has scheduled in April. I ask her if the weekend has any particular focus, and she replies that the topic for the weekend is faith & sexuality. That gives me a few ideas of who might be best for the venue: Sue speaks about gender roles and homosexuality, and she is great with youth. So I shoot Sue an email to see if she is available for the date the youth pastor has scheduled. It goes back and forth a few times until all the puzzle pieces come together. Sue is available, so now I need to book her flight and hotel, car, etc.

I'm currently working on a project with Prestonwood Baptist, a local church that offers Wednesday night classes (somewhat like lay-seminary). The Probe speakers taught two 5-part series on apologetics over the term this fall and we're doing two more for the spring, so I've been sorting out those detials. I just finished writing the class synopses for Prestonwood's brochure. It's the second tiny writing assignment I've had in the 2 weeks I've been working, and of course, I really love that part of my job. So I thought I'd share; this is what I do:

Apologetics I: Engaging Your Neighbor
In a diverse and global society such as ours, it has never been so important for believers to engage the questions and criticisms our world has concerning our Christian faith with intelligent compassion (1 Peter 3:15). Join us for part one of this series on apologetics as we explore various topics such as Postmodernism, Darwinism, Kabbala, and Scientology.

Apologetics II: Engaging Your Culture
"Engaging Your Culture", the second part of our series on apologetics, aims to help prepare you to more fully engage in the conversations of our culture at large. What are these conversations? And how does a biblical view of the world shape our part of the dialogue as Christians? Join the discussion: Personhood & Bioethics, Homosexuality, What is Truth in a Media-centered Society? and Christian Environmentalism.