You Can’t Make This Up

From a church’s statement of faith:

The Scriptures shall be interpreted according to their normal grammatical-historical meaning, and all issues of interpretation and meaning shall be determined by the pastor.

And this is a Baptist church … allegedly.

A few lines later, this same statement of faith says,

We believe that He [the Holy Spirit] is the divine Teacher who assists believers to understand and appropriate the Scriptures and that it is the privilege and duty of all the saved to be filled with the Spirit (Eph. 1:17-18; 5:18; 1 John 2:20, 27).

So if the Holy Spirit assists believers to understand and appropriate the Scriptures, and if all issues of interpretation and meaning shall be determined by the pastor, is the pastor the Holy Spirit? Or is the Holy Spirit the assistant to the pastor?

Just who does he think he is? Or who does he think He is?

Millionaires Among Us

A man or woman who woks from age twenty-five to sixty-five and makes “only” $25,000 a year … will receive a million dollars. He or she will manage a fortune. Because we all will eventually give an account of our lives to God (Romans 14:12; 2 Corinthians 5:10), one day everyone must answer these questions: Where did it all go? What did I spend it on? What has been accomplished for eternity through my use of all this wealth?

  — Randy Alcorn, Money, Possessions, and Eternity, p. 8

Here and There

Here’s a list of the 25 most dangerous neighborhoods. What may surprise some is that the Detroit did not make the list (although they apparently didn’t consider the fact that the soon-to-be-my-house was recently broken into and all the copper was taken from the basement). Atlanta leads with four appearances and Chicago, Las Vegas, Memphis and Cleveland all have multiple appearances. Interestingly, Chattanooga and Louisville KY also both make the list.

And while I am talking about Detroit, here’s the first of three videos about Detroit. They are interesting, to me at least. Detroit is a graveyard of grand old buildings. Be warned that there is some pretty salty speech in a few places, so I encourage careful listening (or careful non-listening). You can trace the path to all three from this first link.

My friend Chris celebrates twelve years of Tri-County Bible Church. God has done some great things there, it sounds like.

I recently saw someone say that certain Calvinists don’t emphasize the cross of Christ very much in their evangelistic appeals. I can only guess that they have never heard people like C J Mahaney, Al Mohler, Mark Dever (or Driscoll), John MacArthur, Matt Chandler, or John Piper. Such a person can be excused for such an oversight. After all, these guys rarely speak anywhere, and when they do, hardly anyone ever blogs about it or tweets it. And MP3s of their preaching might as well be LPs, since there aren’t many of them and hardly anyone has the technology to play them anyway. (An LP is an old vinyl record for those of you born after 1980.)

Oh well … Enough for now.

I Had No Idea

“A person with a felony record can become an attorney, but is barred for life from becoming a security guard at a mall.”*

There is a joke in there somewhere, but knowing I might get sued by someone unqualified to be a mall security guard is preventing me from telling it.

*Miriam Aukerman, “Criminal Convictions as a Barrier to Employment” in Michigan Bar Journal, Nov 2008, p. 33; MCL 338.1056; MCL 338.1067.

Ethnicity, Belief about Jesus, and the Makeup of Churches

Consider the following two statements:

1. Jesus died and came back to life.
2. Believing in Jesus makes a positive difference in a person’s life.

Now, consider this:

[20-29 year old] African-Americans have stronger agreement with both statements about Jesus than any other racial or ethnic group. Almost all African-American young adults (98 percent) agree that Jesus died and came back to life, and eight out of nine agree that believing in Jesus makes a positive difference in a person’s life. [My note: That’s over 20 points higher than the average.] On the other hand, only 59 percent of Anglos believe in the resurrection. Hispanics were similar to the total group, as 70 percent agreed that Jesus returned to life. Agreement that believing in Jesus made a positive difference in a person’s life was 75 percent for each of the non-African-American groups (Ed Stetzer, Lost and Found, pp. 28-29).

Here’s my question: Since 98 percent of young African-Americans say that they agree with us on these two very basic and foundational premises of Christianity, why are churches so seemingly underrepresented by young African-Americans?

It would seem that these would be right “in our wheelhouse” so to speak because we do not have to convince them of the truth of the resurrection or the impact of Jesus on a person’s life.

I think there are several reasons for consideration (anecdotal and observational, rather than scientific).

First, there is the influence of culture. African-Americans are typically brought in a more religious setting than non-African-Americans. It is part of their culture. They know the religious terminology. Most of them have grandmothers who took them to church, and talked to them about God. It’s particularly interesting to me to think of the number of people that I have talked to personally who claim to go to church, but don’t know the name of it, or where it is (aside from “that church over there”).

In my experience in my community, most African-Americans that I talk to claim to go to church and can actually identify the church that they claim to go to. Non-African-Americans are less likely to claim to attend church, and much less likely to be able to identify the church that they attend. Nonetheless, African-American culture seems more religiously knowledgeable and inclined than other cultures. 

Second, there is the influence of education. Stetzer reports that among young adult with college experience, “belief in the resurrection drops from 92 percent among the less educated (high school or less) to 63 percent among those with some college or a degree” (p. 31).

If it is true that African-Americans are less likely to have some college experience, it stands to reason that fewer of them have been talked out their received traditions. That is to say that they claim belief, but perhaps only because no one has talked them out of it yet. That’s not intended as any kind of slight. Remember, the percentages of all ethnic groups go down after some college experience. So those who have attended college are more likely to abandon belief in the resurrection, no matter their ethnicity.

It would be interesting to know the numbers broken down by ethnicity and education.

Whatever the case, it strikes me that perhaps at least some of this is our church culture. Before the “progressives” cheer and the “conservatives” tune out, let me say, I am not sure how important that is to worry about.

I think our church culture needs to reflect the gospel in our community. We do not necessarily need to reflect the community in our gospel. We need to understand our community culture, and minister inside of that culture as much as possible.

Of course we should not adapt the sinful elements of culture. But we should remember that we have no cultural mandate. We have a gospel mandate. And therefore, our entire community is our mandate.